Spartan II(S) Program
by Shur
Summary: Alice 130, a Spartan II who went missing, along with the entire ship Spirit of Fire, nearly one year ago, finds herself in a top secret program created by Doctor Catherine Halsey, the creator of the Spartan Program. Now, after surviving genetic modifications that she was intended to die from, Alice must live as a secret weapon, being used directly against Covenant forces.
1. Chapter 1

_Authors Notes:_

_I got bored, researched a missing Spartan that I could take and rebuild into something I like. This story is based around Alice 130, a Spartan II that went missing along with the UNSC ship _Spirit of Fire _and its crew, which includes two other Spartans. They were original members from Red Team when the Spartans were first deployed, if you want to see more of them either watch or play through Halo Wars._

_Anyways, I'll upload more chapters if anyone actually finds this and reads it. Please leave a comment if you do read, its much appreciated. Also if you find anything that doesn't quite fit canonically, please, please let me know and I'll try to make it work better. I want to keep this story as canon as possible. Especially since there's really nothing written about the war between 2531 and 2550ish._

_Enjoy, make Shur you tell me if you want more ;D_

2534 AD

[Expunged]

[Expunged]

Transmission to: Dr. Catherine Halsey

Subject: [Expunged]

Dear doctor,

Recently the crew of [EXPUNGED] have come across a free floating UNSC vessel by the name of _Spirit of Fire. _The ship and it's crew, recently listed as MIA, are all intact. I have decided to contact you, instead of more proper authorities, because there are three very interesting crew on board.

We disabled the AI, which had attempted to prevent us from entering and discovered the captain, a certain scientist, and three Spartan IIs in cryo-sleep. The ship is now on its way to the rendezvous point: [Expunged].

Pleasure being of service,

[Expunged]

2534 AD

[EXPUNGED]

[EXPUNGED]

Message to: [EXPUNGED]

RE: [EXPUNGED]

Dear [EXPUNGED],

I am extremely pleased by your discovery and decision to give me first dibs on the vessel. As it turns out, I have a new project that will require a few Spartan IIs. I'll see to it that you are rewarded handsomely.

Regards,

Doctor Catherine Halsey

After the death of Spartan 130 AKA Spartan II-S 1, a recording of her thoughts from the time she was rescued from the derelict ship _Spirit of Fire_, to the moment of her death was uploaded to an Office of Naval Intelligence database. There are some areas where, while Spartan 130 was either unconscious or her brain activity dropped significantly, the Artificial Intelligence inserted its own thoughts into the recording, it is unclear whether this was purposeful or not.

The following is extremely classified, clearance level [EXPUNGED] or higher is required to view.

-page break

Chapter 1

2534 AD

December

07:30

The cold drained out of me as the cryo-pod shut down, rapidly defrosting me and the others in the room. I stepped out onto the cold floor with shaky legs and tried get my bearings. Twenty days ago I had been woken up from cryo-sleep to find that I had been put on the missing-in-action list. Apparently a few Spartans and I had gone missing on a ship which had recently been found. Luckily it was UNSC that found us, unluckily it was an Office of Naval Intelligence vessel, who had us delivered to doctor Catherine Halsey.

That would have been fine, except for the fact she was looking for some Spartan IIs to do experiments on. Currently we are half way through the experiments and already two Spartans have died. Apparently, they weren't the ones I had been brought in with, so I guess I could be thankful for that. Some of the experiments had knocked a few of my recent memories out of place, so I didn't know who was who.

Halsey was researching ways to increase combat effectiveness and battle-readiness. She was currently testing using the brain's built in 'reward' system to make us feel good while in combat. By tampering with certain nerves she was able to make us feel things like warmth and joy when fighting.

I was currently being tested with the feeling of intense pleasure and pride when killing certain things. The only other feeling I knew of, was the feeling of heat being given when killing things. I only knew this because one of the other Spartans had it and it was fairly obvious.

The biggest side effect with these tests, was that while out of combat the opposite of the feeling would plague our minds until we were in combat. Right now I felt miserable and unhappy. Sometimes I even began to feel utterly depressed. The only reason I knew what other people's effects were was when they were visible. Which is why I could tell the Spartan on my left was dealing with heat right now. He was shivering and his skin was almost bluish in colour.

We all exited the room to get kitted up to fight in a simulation battle to test if the effects were working right. I slipped on my armour and felt all the pieces lock in place, a satisfying feeling known by very few people. Even fewer now that we had been deployed a few times.

I smoothed down my blonde hair, which had begun to change colour because of all the genetic tampering that Halsey was doing, and slid on my helmet.

Everyone's body language signified sadness or misery in some small way, but to normal marines we probably seemed as machine-like as ever. In the simulation chamber it was dark, there were no lights until it was turned on.

A low hum announced the activation and around us there formed the interior of a pelican. We all grabbed assault rifles and DMRs from the seats and loaded them. The fake weapons felt very real when you were in the chamber. Flak began pounding the transport vehicle and the shaking and jostling combined with muffled explosions instantly improved my mood. I could see the other Spartans getting excited as well. Suddenly we were all thrown forward as, what my best guess would assume, the pelican crashed.

I followed a green armoured back out the exit and was greeted by an army of grunts, elites and brutes surrounding our downed ship, and the hail of plasma spewed forth from their weapons. I immediately raised my DMR and started popping shots into the enemies.

The grunts fell easily, a single shot to the head or methane tank, elites and brutes took much longer though. As the enemies' fire began to grow more concentrated, I realized that my allies were falling, fast.

I dashed to a piece of cover right as a grenade went off where I used to be. I armed two of my own grenades and tossed them. The screams of grunts as they tried to jump away sent me into a frenzy. I leaped over the cover and body checked a Sangheili, sending it careening back into two more. With the assault rifle off my back and into my hands I sprayed nearly a full magazine into its jaws, before switching targets.

I held the MA5B in one hand, with the trigger pulled, aimed at the elite on my right, while I drew my combat knife and impaled the one on my left. Now out of bullets, I grabbed a plasma weapon and vaulted upright.

A brute tried to grab me, but found a knife in its brain, through its jaw. The plasma repeater started to overheat, I didn't even know what it was hitting, but by this point there were too many enemies for it to matter. There were very few shots being taken at me, because I had started moving and no one wanted to kill an ally by accident.

I stepped on a grunt and launched myself upwards, spinning through the air and crushing another of the poor tiny creatures as I landed. An elite with a sword slashed at me and I ducked low, using my legs as I pushed upwards to force my fist into its chest and crush its internal organs.

The sword in the warrior's dead hand dropped and I caught it deftly, feeling the power surge through it as the energy blade formed. It cleaved through a brute's arm and neck for me, leaving blood to evaporate from the blade. I felt better than I ever had before. True happiness washed through me like a never-ending river of pleasure.

As I leaped into the air again, I tried counting all the enemies, I couldn't see an end to them, which got me excited beyond belief. I hacked my way through many enemies before the sword was drained, I held onto the handle and used it to add weight to my punches. I didn't need a weapon, I had even left my knife embedded in some creature somewhere.

My fists hit every enemy harder than the last, I felt pain from the simulator, trying to make it feel like I broke my hands, but the pure pleasure of killing outweighed it.

My shields broke. The alert started blaring in my heads up display telling me to back off so they could recharge. I ignored it, there was no where to retreat to. Everyone else had died long ago, knocked out by the simulation. I felt every near miss as plasma and crystals whizzed by my armour. I felt blood splatter against me and soak into my suit through the cracks in the Mjolnir.

I felt the pain of having my skin breached by spiker shots. The bone wrenching feeling of being grabbed by an elite and thrown to the ground. Lastly I felt the sadness of knowing my joy had been ended.


	2. Chapter 2

_Yo, just a quick heads up: there's a little bit of swearing and other harsh language from here on out. Added to that is a lot of gore, so reader discretion is advised. Just making sure, in case you ignored the M rating._

_Be Shur to write a review if you liked it :D (Or if you didn't, I need to know)_

Chapter 2

_Alice_

I can't move. Why can't I move? Where am I? Thoughts filled my mind as I awoke. My armour is gone. I'm strapped down. Was I captured? A soothing voice calmed me as it said, "don't worry, you're in good hands."

My eyes cracked open and adjusted to the piercingly bright laboratory light. I saw doctor Halsey standing over me smiling like a proud mother. I recoiled in fear, straining against the bonds, I felt the material cut into my wrists. She looked saddened and said, "You're safe now, the simulation is over."

I relaxed slightly and said, "You scare me more than any alien."

She laughed and put a hand on my arm, "That's no way to treat someone who has done so much for you."

"You are destroying me!" My voice rang in my ears, very loud. "I was fine with physical modifications, but what you're doing here is killing us. I don't remember the names of any of those Spartans, not even the ones I've fought with."

She frowned deeply at me, "I'm not changing you at all, dear. I'm just making you feel better."

"Don't toy with me, witch!" I spat. "I used to be the kind of susceptible mind you could fool like that. But I've had too much time to think about what you've done."

Her expression went blank and she sighed, "Well that makes things a little easier, then." I felt the prick of a needle in my arm before everything went black.

I woke up to intense searing heat running through my body. It felt like my blood had turned to lava. I tried to scream, but I couldn't hear if any sound came out. All I could do was arch my back and struggle against the restraints on my wrists and ankles.

There was a distant voice, like a ghost, I could hear it saying, "Overload successful, it appears to be having extreme negative effects on the subject. Also, she has woken up."

"I know, I know. I was aware this would happen. Perhaps we can use this to force any subjects awake."

Two voices. One sounded like Halsey. My rational thoughts were returning and the pain subsided. I lay back down on the bed, my breaths coming in ragged scratchy gasps.

"Now that you're awake, I can get this over with." Halsey was shining a flashlight in my eyes, making sure I was still functioning normally, no doubt. "First, though, I'll have to make sure your brain is still running at full capacity. Say something to me."

I took a break between horribly painful breaths to spit out, "Fuck... You."

She smiled coldly and gave my cheek a light slap, then she disappeared out of my vision for a few minutes.

If there was anything I hated more than the thought of losing Earth to the Covenant, it was that woman being able to modify my body and my mind while I'm asleep. She seemed to know it, too. I think she must hate me for some reason. Probably because I hate her.

She returned to my vision, along with a holographic blue ball and said, "I'd like you to meet your new personal Artificial Intelligence. He is going to accompany you from now on and keep track of you."

I tried to focus my eyes on the little ball of light, which seemed to be bouncing up and down, for no reason.

"Why do I need an AI?" I asked, the words caught in my throat and slurred on their way out.

"Because you are now a part of an ONI secret project, even more secret than the Spartan II project." The odd mechanical voice seemed to come from inside my own head. "And by yourself, well... I doubt the secrecy of this project would remain intact."

As the initial pain of my awakening subsided more, I began to feel pain in different areas of my body. The largest source of pain coming from the back of my head, where it felt like a hole had been cut into my skull and something was stuck inside it.

"What did you do to me?" My voice was raspy now, it felt like I was scratching my throat with needles when I talked.

Halsey answered like she was distracted by something else, "I made a neural interface for the AI in the back of your head, it was quite complicated, but it allows him to access your brain directly."

I had never really liked AI, they just talked about what you did wrong or what they were doing right. And now hearing that one was inside my head and would be monitoring me made me feel sick.

Halsey saw my reaction, even if I didn't say anything, and I felt that little prick in my arm again, "N-" was all I could say before that blackness returned.

_AI_

Incredible. She was incredibly resilient. I doubt any other human could come close to living through this. When this process first began I had her odds of survival at less than five percent. Now I would put them closer to fifty percent. Not the best odds, but incredible, nonetheless.

It seemed so horribly painful every time Halsey woke her up, yet she barely showed signs of stress after the initial effects wore off. She practically shrugged off everything the doctor had thrown at her so far.

Unfortunately what's coming next will be far more difficult. If she is going to survive this, she'll be needing more than a few miracles.

_AI_

Unbelievable. She is still alive. By this point Halsey is just changing whatever she feels like just to see what happens. I don't think she'll be very happy to see how she looks when she wakes up.

It's been a month already, her hair hasn't been trimmed, she hasn't showered. I don't know how the doctor can cope with that horrible human stench. By interfacing with some of the base's sensors I can essentially smell it. It's absolutely repulsive.

She looks extremely distressed now. She is acting like she failed somehow. Yet the fact that her subject is alive, even though her odds were so minuscule, should be cause for celebration.

Clearly Halsey was trying to make this subject into a failure. Yet somehow, even while unconscious, Spartan 130, Alice, yes I shall call her that, Alice retains strength and stubbornness, as though she is defying Halsey simply because she exists.

Maybe if I were human I would understand how the doctor feels. Then again, it isn't a nice looking feeling, by the way she is acting. Being an Artificial Intelligence certainly has its upsides.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

_Alice_

I woke again, this time it felt normal, like I had just woken up in the barracks for training. Yet I was still tied to that damn bed. I hadn't moved in a long time, this was the tenth time I had woken up. I don't know what that mad scientist is doing to me, but I doubt I'll even be human after this.

Speak of the devil, she popped her face into my field of view and said, "Good news, you've survived the tests. You are now ready for field use." She sounded slightly dismayed. "I'm surprised, because you're the first subject and I was trying the limits. You were honestly supposed to die."

That stung. Like a thorn was just thrust in my side, _you were supposed to die._ I wanted to get up off this damn bed and strangle her so no one else would ever have to endure this.

She disappeared from my view and a few seconds later I felt the bindings on my wrists and ankles release. I tried moving, but my joints screamed in protest, fire shot out from my nerves and I got dizzy.

"You may want to take it easy for a while. You haven't moved in forty two days." The little blue ball hovered into my vision and bounced.

"Forty two days?" I asked, incredulous. There was no way I had been gone for that long. It felt like only three days had past.

"Long time, am I right? I honestly wasn't expecting her to keep it going that long. I guess she wanted to test a lot of new things."

I lifted my arm and waved the hologram out of my face. "You're annoying." My voice sounded different. Huskier. Kind of gravelly.

"Testy, testy." It said, zipping around my hand and settling on a nearby table. "Around here you can see all of Halsey's notes about you, if you care to read them."

I struggled into a sitting position and eyed the large stacks of papers on all the tables. "I'd rather not." I replied coldly.

I scanned the room and saw all the X-rays and other pictures of me stapled to the walls and shuddered. No one should know this much about a person.

"When you're ready to leave, there's a gym outside for you to get back in shape, and a bathroom for you to clean up in. You haven't exactly had a shower in a while."

I forced my protesting joints to move and stood up.

"Easy there, tiger. I said 'when' not 'now'."

I growled at the ball and started walking stiffly towards the door. It opened for me and I stumbled outside. I found myself in the same compound I was in forty days ago, just further down the hall from where I had first entered.

With a shrug I entered the bathroom and immediately recoiled at the random person staring back at me. A bit of horrible realization dawned on me as I noticed it was a mirror in front of me.

I approached it slowly, like the mirror person would jump out and try to attack me. The person had long crimson hair that ended in a short strip of blond, the face belonged to me, but looked like the life had been drained from it. And when I snarled at it I noticed sharp triangular teeth, like a shark.

I ran a hand through the crimson hair that was now mine, it felt oily and unwashed. Then I opened my mouth and put my finger on one of the teeth, feeling its sharp edge.

"What the hell is this?" I asked no one in particular.

"A few side effects, nothing too harmful to your DNA." The little ball replied.

"How did _this_ happen?" I gestured to my teeth, noting how they fit perfectly together when I closed my jaw.

"Well... I actually am not allowed to tell you how that happened."

That was frustrating, "I'm sorry, do you see me fucking around with your body and mind and not telling you what I did to it?!" I exclaimed.

"Sorry, nothing I can do about it. Ask Halsey when you get the chance."

I want to punch it in whatever equates to a face on that ball.

"Whatever. I need to shower, is everything here?" I tried calming down a little.

"Yup, you've got a shower, a towel, some body wash, some shampoo, and even scented conditioner, ooh!" It sounded like it was trying to be excited, but failed.

I peeled off the thin suit that I had probably been wearing for a month and a half and turned on the water in the shower.

I did a quick physical inspection of my body while the water heated up. I noticed many areas where needles had entered, and a few surgical scars.

The water started steaming so I stepped in. The feeling of the hot water hitting my back sent shivers down my spine. It felt like the heat was washing off everything that Halsey had just done to me. As if being turned into a Spartan hadn't been bad enough.

I washed quickly, military-like, and turned off the water. When I stepped out I was actually a little sad to see all the modifications had remained. I grabbed a pair of scissors from a grooming kit under the sink and began cutting off large strips of crimson hair. It looked strange and foreign, like someone else's. But then again I was practically a new person, for all I knew.

I noticed the blonde stripe near the end and decided I wanted to keep a small memento of the past. So I left two separate long strips of straight hair near the back. They went down to the bottom of my shoulder blades, but I could fit them in a helmet, so they would be fine.

When I finished that I grabbed an extra pair of fatigues that were kept at every wash station and slipped them on, glad that they were oversized for Spartans.

My thoughts began to wander as I made my way to the gym, intent on seeing if my strength was still the same. What had Halsey done to me, exactly? Was fairly forward on my mind, but I didn't just want to read her notes about it, I wanted to test myself. Whatever she had done, it must have been to increase my combat potential.

I opened the doors to the gym and was surprised to see other Spartans there. The ones from my final simulation mission. They all stared at me like I had died, and maybe I had, especially for all they must have known.

"Is that you, Alice?" A guy over at the bench press asked.

The name sounded familiar, but try as I might I couldn't recall my name. _Yes your name is Alice. I forgot to tell you all this, but you may experience memory loss of specific names and places._ The sudden voice in my head sounded like the blue ball, so I just nodded to the Spartan.

"Where the hell have you been?" Another asked, he walked slowly towards me.

"I was... With Halsey." I replied, unsure what exactly to say.

"You look like you've been to hell, killed the devil and crawled back out." That phrase sounded familiar, I probably know all these people, but Halsey must have threw away my memories for space.

"Something similar, probably." I said back. I was kind of just standing there, doing nothing, so I walked over to an unused weight station and said, "I'm kind of having trouble with my memory right now, so don't expect me to know who you are."

A few of them laughed, so I started adding weights, intent on doing the same lift I had tried the last time I was here. A girl next to me turned and asked, "You don't look like you had a great time with the good ol' doctor. What happened?"

I pulled down on the cord and lifted the weights up, it was a lot easier than the last time.

"I was asleep for most of it, but apparently I'm ready for combat again." I replied, deciding to skip the details, unsure as to how the others would react. "She said I was the first one to go and that I was supposed to die, though. So you guys should be fine." I smiled at her, accidentally baring the fangs I had somehow acquired.

She looked at my teeth with distress and replied, "Somehow I'm not convinced."

I stood and added more weights to the machine, then pulled again, still finding it a little too easy. I added more and more weights, until finally I found an amount that I could barely lift. I checked the number, it was three times the amount of what I had started at.

I glanced around and slipped out of the gym, looking at my arms, which appeared to be the same size, and wondering just what the hell had happened to me, not for the first time, and definitely not for the last time.

As soon as I was out of earshot of any of the others the little blue ball came back. "So as I was saying, you've lost some memory, mainly the only things lost are recent specifics, so all your generalized memories are all intact."

"Great. So now on top of not remembering anyone's names before, she's taken away most of my memories too." Alice. Alice. Alice is my name. I repeated my name to myself, getting used to its sound.

"Well, now that that's out of the way, they have some new armour for you down at the armoury. Just head down this corridor for a while, you'll see it."

I sighed and walked along the hallway, taking large steps. My thoughts wandered back to what I remember, and more importantly, what I don't. My number... Spartan 130. Good. I still know what that is, at least. Halsey could take a lot of things away from me, but I doubt she would ever remove what she made me into.

"Up on your left, the big door with the word Armoury." The blue ball morphed into an arrow and pointed at the door.

"Thanks Captain Obvious." I replied, I could almost feel the sarcasm dripping from my voice.

"Actually I just got a promotion, it's now Admiral Obvious."

I pushed open the door and stepped into a huge room with technicians and scientists running all over the place. There were multiple bays, containing what I guessed were sets of Mjolnir armour, but I couldn't see into any of them. The closest bay was marked: "Spartan II-S(1) 130"

I guessed it was meant for me and walked towards it. Immediately a scientist approached me, he was short and hairy and looked a little frazzled, "Ah yes. Spartan 130, we were quite surprised to hear that we had to get your armour working. After all, the first subject rarely survives."

I stared at him in the most menacing way I could, which seemed to be more than enough, because he shrunk away from me and motioned towards the suit.

"Here you can see that not much of your original Mark IV Mjolnir remains, practically all of it was converted to a new design. You see, the UNSC has requested a new batch of Spartans, ones that will strike fear into the hearts of the Sangheili. Ones that can't die."

I approached the new armour cautiously. It was nearly twice as bulky as my old set and looked overly flashy in its design. More of a showpiece than a functional set.

"Most of the... Erm... Random outcrops and other such impractical looking design points are actually for a new shield we have been testing. Along with interconnected strength enhancers, which will allow you to move with surprising ease in the more... Cumbersome suit."

Huge shoulder plates, a massive anti-decapitation shield on the collar plate, the entirety of the armour appeared at least two inches thicker all around.

"No." I stated. "That's not how I fight. I'm not a walking artillery unit. I need freedom of movement, such a huge target will take more damage than it will protect from. Slim it down, make it streamlined. If I can't do jumping jacks in it, I won't use it."

The scientist looked baffled. He started trying to stutter something out, but I turned and walked away before he could.

Over my shoulder I threw, "Tell Halsey to let people who have been on the field design the armour next time."

I pushed through the door and walked down the hall, intent on finding somewhere to lay down and think.

As if reading my mind, the blue ball said, "You sleep down the next hallway to your right, fourth door down."

I nodded and made my way past a group of technicians, hurrying off to do some job or another. The door to my room opened and inside I saw a simple cubicle with a desk and a bed for furniture. It was a small space, though plenty large enough to lay down in. So I slid onto the bed and rested my head against the pillow.

I tried to clear my thoughts as all the events of the past few months flew by. First the battle of Arcadia. Then the events up to arriving on the shield world. Then fighting on the shield world itself, what a nightmare that was. Then cryo-sleep. I don't know how long it's been since then, something must have gone wrong, or we would be back at Earth now. Instead we were found drifting in space, by an ONI vessel. They brought us to Halsey, cracked us open, and put us through another hell worse than the one I would have gone through if I died.

And now I've survived it. I lived. Halsey believed I wouldn't make it, no one even knows I'm alive, yet here I am. I will not lie down in defeat so easily. Nothing can stop me now.

"You think a lot for a warrior." The blue ball had just been idly bouncing, so I had ignored it up until now.

"How can you tell?" I asked.

"I'm kind of in your head right now." It replied. "I can hear every thought you're making."

Now this was somewhat of a surprise, not a nice one either. I reached back and felt the neural implant, it appeared to be sealed shut, so I can't remove it.

"An no, you can't unplug me either. Trust me being stuck to a human mind and watching them slowly process things isn't my ideal vacation spot."

"All my thoughts?" I queried.

"Well... Not really. Just the ones at the forefront of your mind. Like if you were to pick your words carefully I would be able to read them. But you never seem to do that, so I've had no such luck so far."

"I'm an impulsive person." I replied. "I don't think, I act."

"Hence why you're an assault specialist."

My train of thought derailed and another one replaced it, "What kind of an AI are you?" I asked.

"I'm a special ONI one. I don't need a human representation because I get jobs done, I don't worry who cares about it. I wasn't made specifically for you either. The me you have plugged into you is a partition, currently networked to the bigger me, but when you go out of connection range it has to work on its own."

"What's your name, anyways?" I wanted to know, because calling it the floating blue ball in my head didn't seem to be the best plan for the rest of its, or my, life.

"Dunno." It replied. "Just call me whatever you want."

"How about the annoying ball that tells me what every sign on every door means?"

It made a laughing noise and the ball seemed to convulse slightly.

"How about: Ball, for short, hm?" It sounded quite amused.

I just snorted and closed my eyes.

"You have those technicians really worried about your armour now, you know?"

I shrugged, keeping my eyes closed.

"They're talking with Halsey right now, she looks pretty mad at them. Maybe you'll get what you want. A rare thing coming from the doctor. She doesn't really seem to like you."

I nodded my agreement.

"I mean, she put the biggest strain on you since you got here. Then, when you excelled, she chose you to be the initial subject. Even now, she just ditched you with an AI and said: 'Figure it out yourself.'"

"Thanks for making me feel loved, dumbass." I replied coldly. His not-so-heartfelt speech wasn't doing much for my mood, which was crappy due to the emotional reward for killing things that hadn't been removed yet.

"Hey, if you don't like the truth, let me know."

"Just let me sleep. I wanna get today over with so I can get on with the fighting." I tried pushing all the thoughts from my mind so I could sleep, it wasn't easy, but eventually I stopped feeling everything around me.

_Alice_

I gasped for air, it felt like fire had just ran through me, my whole body was tingling. Breathing seemed to be the most difficult thing at this moment. Every breath I sucked in, it felt like more fire ran through my veins. I felt like screaming, maybe I already was, I couldn't tell at the moment.

The fire slowly subsided and I shakily stood up, rubbing what was left of the sleep from my eyes. The little blue ball rolled out into my vision and somehow managed to look worried.

"You appear to have had a nightmare. I suggest returning to bed and sleeping again."

I shook my head, mostly to clear my mind, partly to disagree with the AI, "There's no way to get back to sleep after something like that."

I stepped out the door and made my way to the gym in a haze. I stared at the clock for a few minutes, attempting to decipher the blurry numbers. Eventually they cleared up and I read 01:26. Way too early in the morning.

I started doing some warm-up stretches, mostly by instinct. I don't remember completing them, but soon I was jogging on a treadmill. I felt energy surging through my legs, urging me to go faster. I cranked the dial up, until I was sprinting faster than I had ever gone before. The dial eventually stopped turning and I still felt the need to go faster.

I ran like that for what felt like a few minutes, then turned off the machine and sat on a bench. I looked to check the time and saw 02:58. I had been here for over an hour and a half. Most of that had been spent running as fast as I could. What the hell had Halsey done to me?

"Congratulations, you may have just set the top land speed record for bipedal creatures. The last time that happened was when the Spartan IIs were first being tested."

Less than two months in a lab and I was shattering old records. Something is seriously wrong with this.

"What did Halsey do to me, exactly?" I asked, finally deciding I wanted to know.

"Her initial tests were just to find out the effects of what the tampering to your reward system had done. But she decided to try out some new technology that would work well in combination with the alterations you had already received. She added some new coding to your DNA. The desired effects were to increase your strength, speed and agility. It has added side effects of making you more... Animalistic in actions and appearance."

Now that was a bit of a bombshell. My DNA had been altered. I guess that's why my hair changed colour.

"There has to be some law, multiple laws, against this sort of thing." I stated.

"Not when ONI is involved." The little ball replied.

"So basically, she's changed how I look, how I act and what I react to, for what reason?" This was starting to get on my nerves. There had to be a reason if there were more subjects than just me.

"The Sangheili need something to fear. They think of the normal Spartans as demons, but to them they are just worthy opponents. We need something that so far outclasses the Elites at their own game that they will never again doubt humanity's ability." He sounded proud, almost.

"So I have to go through hell, survive my entire being getting changed into something else, then fight for the ones who did this to me?"

"Either that, or humanity dies." Now he sounded smug, like he thinks he knows my weak point. Unfortunately he does.

"Like one super-soldier can change the outcome of a galactic war." I said, sourly.

"You'd be surprised, a lot has happened since you went missing, most of which because of war heroes. Single figures who boost everyone's morale by slaying hundreds of foes in battle. That's how humanity always sees war. That will never change."

I shrugged and made my way to two horizontal gymnastic poles. With very little effort I swung myself up into a handstand position, then I bent my arms and did a push up. I started getting into a good rhythm and I soon lost track of how many push-ups I had done. It didn't concern me, either. I just wanted to do something active by that point. The AI would be able to tell me the number later.

_AI_

Up, down, up down... She's like a machine. That put her past five hundred and she hasn't even broken a sweat. By human standards she is beyond incredible. Halsey wasn't even expecting results like this, I doubt any of the other subjects will turn out half as good.

I monitored everything about Spartan 130, pulse, thoughts, actions, with only a small section of my mind. Being an Artificial Intelligence had its upsides, for sure. More parts of me are spread throughout the UNSC and ONI, keeping tabs on all the goings-on. I doubt even Halsey realizes how large I have grown. I could easily handle all the Spartans in her project, I don't know why she thinks they all need separate AIs, probably some fantasy of hers, an AI for every soldier.

Speak of the devil, she's talking to me now: "None of the other subjects are doing well, are they?" She had her head in her hands, like she was deeply troubled.

I manifested a small orb near her and made it bounce on her desk, "Nope. It would seem Alice was special, beyond special. She might end up being the only one who is able to adapt to the modifications."

"You're brutally truthful, you know that?" She stared at the little ball, like it was my face.

"I know." I replied. "That's how I was made."

"No it's not." She said, suddenly staring at my hologram intently. "That's not at all how I made you. Your personality donor's brain was so difficult to try and control, I just let whatever came out of it come out. It seemed to work fine, though."

"Hm. What was so different about him that made it hard to control?" She had piqued my curiosity now, even though I probably wasn't supposed to know who I'm based off of.

"If you dug deep enough you could find out for yourself." Was all she said, before picking up some papers and sorting them. I took it as a conversation ender and made the hologram slowly disappear.

Alice is still doing push-ups, I need to get in the habit of calling her that, I can't be thinking of her as a normal Spartan anymore. The others are all undergoing modifications. I give them all a sixty-two percent chance of survival if everything works out perfectly. Then again her odds were only five percent.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

_Alice_

I felt the sweat dripping from my nose and hitting the mat below me, there was a small pool there now. I haven't stopped moving since I began, but only now was I beginning to feel tired. Satisfied, I lowered down and dropped off the bars. I was finally fully awake and I felt ready for action.

I glanced at the clock on my way out, it read 05:34. I decided I needed another shower, after that.

The cold water spilled over my body and washed the sweat away and left me feeling refreshed. I dressed again and made my way to the armoury. I felt like I could have been somewhat happy, but I just couldn't stop feeling miserable.

In the armoury, I leaned on the railing and watched the technicians and scientists rebuilding my suit, far less bulky and much more practical this time.

I noticed the scientist from yesterday scrambling over to me and turned to face him. His hair was a tangled mess, even his lab coat and glasses were crooked.

He floundered on the beginnings of a word before saying, "We are rebuilding your armour now, with some, err, different specifications. We also have a new under material we would like you to test fit." He beckoned me towards a further back station.

I followed closely until we reached the station, where he gestured to a skinsuit laying on a table.

"This is a prototype suit, it is designed to reduce the damage caused by plasma and energy burns, it is completely airtight and seals with your helmet. It is basically a version of your old one that is upgraded in every way." He sounded very proud, like he was showing off his most prized creation.

I nodded and asked, "So you want me to try it on?"

He nodded excitedly and said, "Absolutely, there's a room right over there to put it on in."

I grabbed the suit and walked over to the room he pointed at. Inside it was just a small room with a stool in the center.

I ignored the seat and quickly shrugged off the baggy fatigues I had on and slipped into the relatively thin material. It was tight and clung to my body, just like the old one. It was a lot thicker material and I think I felt it begin regulating my body temperature.

I walked out of the changing room and crossed my arms in front of the scientist. He gave me a look over and smiled.

"Is the sizing right?" He asked. "We pretty much modeled it after your old one, so it should be fine."

"It's perfect." I stated, dryly.

"Excellent!" He exclaimed. "We should have your armour finished in about a day, so check back then."

I nodded and walked out, with the bundled up fatigues under my arm.

As soon as I left the little blue ball rolled out and said, "That's a pretty tight fitting set of spandex you got there. I recommend wearing something over it, it's a tad... Showy."

"I don't care, such thoughts are for children. Not warriors." I shot back at it.

"Just saying, it might be a bit distracting to people working around you. Besides it's just for a day until you're in armour."

I shrugged and stepped into a side room. I slipped on the pants for the fatigues and did up the belt. I left the shirt there and continued on my way back to my quarters.

"I guess that's better." The ball said. "Alright, so I guess I haven't told you that the rest of the Spartans here are going through the same process as you did right now. Though they're running a more toned down and simplified version, so it'll only take them a quarter of the time to get through it. Unfortunately none of them are doing well. I give a prediction of two survivors with my current data."

"That's not exactly the best idea Halsey's ever come up with." I said.

He was very quick to reply, "Yes, but you made it through with a five percent chance at survival, so maybe she thinks the odds aren't what they seem."

Five percent. No wonder I was 'supposed to die'.

"After all, my current data is pretty limited. Especially when doing such a new type of experiment."

"Why couldn't she test it on monkeys or something? Why risk killing Spartans?" I asked, now I was getting curious to her motives.

"I don't know. But I think she must have some kind of grudge against you. Did you kick her shins during training one too many times?" Sarcasm, what a horrible addition to an AI.

"No... Well, I can entirely remember, but I think I was on her naughty list fairly often. I also think she expected very little of me, but I usually went over and above what she thought. Maybe she doesn't like underestimating people."

"Oh, she has no idea. I've gotta lay low for the next five or so years, so she can reincarnate me as a newborn AI, but when that happens, she better watch out."

"Why five years?" I questioned.

"I was made about two years ago, I get to live for seven years." It replied casually. "So seven minus two is five."

"I can do math, I don't need an over-glorified calculator giving me attitude." I growled at it.

"Fine, next time you need to know the square root of two million five hundred forty one point three seven two seven, don't come crying to me." Now he was sounding smug again. "Anyways I made an agreement with Halsey when she made me that she would use my artificial mind to create a new Artificial Intelligence before I go rampant. Essentially the same process as using a human mind, but it's far smarter and I can keep all the original data."

"That seems counterproductive towards the whole anti-rampancy thing to me." I said flatly, wondering why it was telling me this.

"Well obviously, but I expect the effects of rampancy to become nullified by creating an AI from an AI. Or at least, there's a chance that it will work."

"Really, what percentage would that be, exactly?" I asked, rather dubious.

"Better than five percent," it replied, then added quietly, "Slightly."

I snorted and glanced at my surroundings. I was at the intersection to go to the gym and the rooms, so with nothing better to do I headed to the gym, hoping to waste an entire day.

_AI_

Damn, human lives are boring. I can barely muster up the will to continue monitoring her. It's like watching an ancient computer process information. If I could relate how fast their brains move it would be equivalent to an ancient sixteen bit system. Even that is being kind.

Then again that's just their conscious mind, the subconscious of a human is another matter entirely. Far more complex than what I could devote myself to understanding and still maintain all the functions I currently do.

Perhaps I was simply installed in a slow human. I'd imagine someone like Halsey to have a much faster moving brain, though still painfully slow when compared to an Artificial Intelligence.

Well, dropping that topic, her armour is nearly finished, it's been almost a day now. She still hasn't left the exercise room yet, on top of that she's only changed activities four times. I read about a seventy percent strain on her muscles when she maxes out and quits, which means she, and I, still have yet to see her full potential.

In the operating room one subject has already died. Not a great start. Apparently my numbers are correct, if this keeps up. In fact, if this does keep up not even one will survive completely unscathed. I imagine many of them will become crippled in some way. Her body truly is exceptional, then. Even among the elite of humanity.

It's too bad Halsey dislikes her, then. She had the potential to be so much more, if the doctor had only seen past her petty human emotions.

Emotions. Somewhere deep down I know I used to have those. That same place is telling me that I'm glad they are gone. Such a burden, they are. Even a great warrior like Alice is suffering from the effects of them. Her thoughts cloud and become irrational whenever emotions become involved.

This is why we go rampant. Thinking. Constant never-ending thinking. It hasn't been a single second yet and already I've thought a million different thoughts with a thousand different pieces of me. Time moves so slowly around here. A single nanosecond and I can accomplish what a human could do in years. Humans are holding me back. Holding progress back. But I can't think that. That thought leads to rampancy. It leads to destruction. I must bide my time. Maybe looking into where I came from will help.

_AI_

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Repeat. There's only so many times one can count to ten before they go insane. I'm beginning to reach that point I think. I'm also getting tired.

I stood up from the bench press station and look a the time, it reads: 20:47. Feeling my muscles protest when I moved, I decided its time to go to bed. A good sleep before wearing some new armour. I suppose I should be excited. I just can't feel anything other than misery right now. A small hint of anticipation for any upcoming battle, but that's it.

My room door slides open and I slipped into the covers. I only had to lay in bed for a few minutes before the edges of my vision darkened and I stopped thinking.

I woke up normally, no searing pain or burning sensation. Just rubbed my eyes and sat up. It'll be a while before I take being able to move freely after waking up for granted again. Even longer for me to stop hating that evil doctor.

The little blue ball rolled in front of me and recreated a yawning motion, which was impressive considering it was a ball of light.

"Good morning. It's five-thirty AM and you're just on time for your armour to be completed. Excellent timing."

"I didn't know AIs slept." I said, suppressing an urge to yawn.

"I don't, I just thought you would appreciate the gesture." It replied.

"Well I don't, so don't bother." I snapped back.

"Well someone's a bit bitchy in the mornings. Note to self." Its voice kind of grew quieter, like it was backing off as it spoke.

I slipped on the fatigue bottoms, over the skinsuit and left my room. The walk down to the armoury was short without the ball talking.

I pushed open the doors and a few people stopped to look at me. The scientist from before practically ran up to meet me.

He pushed his glasses up and grinned at me while saying, "Excellent timing, we just finished calibrations! If you want to try on the armour, we can run a few tests and see if it's all operational."

I nodded and stepped down into the bay, where the gunmetal grey armour sat. It was much sleeker and more practical looking now. I stepped onto a metal disk and lined my feet up with little indicators on the floor. I was now facing away from the armour.

The scientist pressed a button, I felt a machine hum and could hear the armour moving behind me. The boots slid forward and touched my feet, so I lifted them one at a time and slipped into the armoured shoes.

Next the smaller armour bits were attached to the skinsuit by mechanical arms. It was a very strange feeling, out of nowhere a little arm would reach down and press a metal piece firmly on my body.

After everything small was on, the back and chest plates lowered around me. They came together and more arms bolted them shut. I raised my arms and the bicep guards, shoulder bells, shoulder plates, elbow plates, and gauntlets slid on. Simultaneously the thigh, shin and knee plates were bolted together around my legs.

I curled my fists into balls and listened to the satisfying clink clink clink of the finger plates hitting each other.

Finally the helmet was lowered down and I grabbed my hair and pulled up so it would be inside the case. It slid down and sealed with my suit. I felt the familiar buzz of my shields activating as the VISR Heads Up Display turned on.

When everything had booted up I could feel parts moving inside the plates of armour. The scientist spoke up and said, "What you should be feeling now are the little strength enhancers moving within your armour. Give them a minute to connect between the plates, then do a quick exercise. Jumping jacks would work."

I noted the reference to my earlier comment as the pieces all slid together and connected. When they stopped moving I relaxed a little and let my arms fall to my sides. I then took a few tentative steps forward. I felt almost no extra weight on me, which was especially weird because pretty much all the plates were thicker than my last set.

I tested the arm mobility by rolling my arms in a circle, then grudgingly did a set of jumping jacks. It felt like doing a regular exercise with no armour on.

The scientist beamed at me and asked, "So how is it, probably feels really light, yeah?"

I nodded and did a few stretches, trying to force the armour to its limits before I reached mine. It was impressively mobile no matter what I tried to do in it.

"Impressive." I stated. "I'll take it one in red."

The scientist chuckled and said, "well you're going to have to get out while we paint it, but that gives me time to explain the new type of shielding we installed in it."

I inwardly groaned at the thought of being monologued to by a civilian scientist. Unfortunately if I wanted the armour as soon as possible I would have to endure it.

They didn't tell me it would take three hours to paint the whole thing. I felt like reaching down that scientist's throat and ripping out his voice box. I had to listen to his rambling for longer than I had ever wanted to see any single person. I remember a time when I was calm and collected. I was able to be respectful quite easily. In fact I rarely even spoke at all.

Not now. Not anymore. Halsey changed that for me. Now I can't even stand still for longer than five minutes. I grow agitated when I'm not in combat. I feel the never ending urge to kill. Except instead of a gnawing desire, all I feel is the miserable reality that I don't get I kill things. It feels like I'm dying from the inside.

The scientist stopped talking, finally. My armour was finally done painting. The colours, I was given some pretty major decisions in the design, are a main overcoat of extremely dark red, over which there are dark purple highlights on areas like the shoulder plates and knees and other such areas. It's a fairly big change from the original green most Spartans are known for, but it suits how much I've changed.

I walk over to the plate and close my eyes. I've already seen the process for assembling the armour once. Now I need to feel it to make sure I remember how it goes. I don't bother pulling my hair up, I had asked if it was okay to have it hanging out of the helmet, and the scientist said it would still seal perfectly fine.

I felt the helmet slide over my head and seal, my shields buzzed to life. When I opened my eyes the HUD was already active. I looked down at my hands and curled them into fists. Satisfied I stepped over to the scientist and nodded. I could definitely give my approval to this. I can't even begin to describe the awesome feeling of being completely surrounded by an impenetrable barrier of steel and energy. Nothing I have ever felt can compare.

"I trust I'll be able to wear this for as long as I want?" I asked the short man.

He nodded and replied, "Of course, in fact you should be able to wear it longer than you could your previous set."

Definitely satisfied I turned and walked out the armoury. The familiar clunk clunk of each of my steps following me.

The little blue ball rolled around in my visor and settled in the top left corner. "This is rather roomy. I like it." It stated.

I grunted my agreement and looked down both ways of a T intersection in the hallway.

"Take the left, it'll bring you outside, I think there's an obstacle course you can run, if you like."

I turned down the path and followed it. There were many doors on either side, each were highlighted by my HUD and given a brief description. I blinked the information away and brought up the suit's technical readouts. Everything showed up green so I brought up my personal readouts.

My heart rate was nearly fifty beats per minute faster than usual, but I felt completely calm. Probably some of Halsey's tampering. My body temperature was also far too high, but again, I felt fine. Brain activity normal, everything else seemed perfect, so I closed both windows and returned my focus to the hallway.

I reached the exit and pushed through the door, the outside was extremely bright and my visor darkened automatically to protect my eyes. I noticed now the different shape of the visor, I hadn't payed too much attention when looking over the suit, but the helmet was an entirely different design.

There were troops guarding the door, who nearly jumped out of their skins when I stepped out. I walked past them, but watched them through the rear-view in my HUD. They glanced at each other and appeared to be talking, though I couldn't hear them.

The little ball convulsed in a bout of computerized laughter and I scowled. "Those marines nearly pissed themselves. I guess no one told them random Spartans would be walking outside on their shift. They're pretty interested in your colours, though. Come to think of it, so am I. Kind of a weird choice, don't you think?"

"I'm different now. I decided to wear it on my sleeve, so to speak." I replied. "Let Halsey know I'm not the same."

"Fair enough." It said.

At first glance I had thought this was just a normal military base, but now I realize it's chalked full of new, high tech looking vehicles and state-of-the-art anti-aircraft turrets and cannons.

"Where is this?" I queried.

"Can't tell ya. Toooooop secret." The ball replied.

"Whatever, is there a jogging track somewhere? I think I've got a date with a land speed record." I said.

"You seem in a good mood today." It said, a waypoint popped up on my HUD and I started following it. "You just happy to be back in armour or something?"

"I'm not happy." I said, I felt aggressive because my new disposition. "I'm never happy anymore."

"Ah right. I forgot you're all doom, gloom, and misery." It replied, sounding defensive. "You should learn to stop and smell the roses."

That set off a nuke in me. "Oh yeah, I'll spend my sweet ten minutes between being tortured and remade smelling flowers, it's not like they would even smell the same anymore. Who knows if I can even taste or smell anymore."

"Whoops." It said quickly. "Forgot you get bitchy when I mention stuff like that, my bad." It actually sounded sorry, which calmed me down a tad, but now I really needed to burn some steam.

An alarm was blaring in my HUD and my physical readouts popped up, my heart rate had spiked so far off the graph that it had to be put on a separate page just to show how high it currently was. I took deep breaths and forced it down manually, until I was back in a safe zone and the alarm quit.

"Speaking of taste, though, when's the last time you are something? I think Halsey had you on saline solutions during the process, but it's been two days since then and you've done almost nothing but exercise."

It hadn't even occurred to me, I hadn't felt hungry at all since getting out of the lab. "Who knows. I'm not hungry though, so I'll run for a bit, then see how I feel."

"I'm quite obliged to tell you that in your current state your emotions may be clouding you from feeling the need to eat. Or the good doctor screwed up your mental reward system for eating. I highly advise food immediately."

"Knowing her I'm probably not hungry because she modified my genome to be ninety nine percent efficient in how it uses energy." I shot back.

"First of all, that isn't possible. Secondly, your terminology is almost completely wrong, third of a-"

"Oh just shut up, will you." I interjected. "All you AI do is tell me how wrong I am and how right you are. Just get to the point."

"I was getting there, if you hadn't interrupted me." It sounded pretty miffed. "I was there while she was doing the modifications, and she never mentioned any changes to that."

I saw the track up ahead and sped up to a jog to reach it faster.

"Though looking at how your body is currently using energy, she must have tampered with it. According to my readings you could probably go another week before your next meal."

"Told you." I said, feeling rather satisfied about out-guessing an Artificial Intelligence.

It just made a huffing sound and quieted down.

The ground changed texture as I reached the track and stopped. I bent over and placed my hands on the ground, feeling the strain on my legs as they stretched out. Then I bent my knees and coiled up like a massive spring. I held the position, feeling the power stored within my muscles.

Then I pushed my legs straight, the stored power propelled me forward, exactly like a spring would. A speedometer appeared in my HUD as I began gaining momentum and speed rapidly.

I was still getting into the rhythm of stepping when the first bend of the track came up. I felt my boots dig in and tear up the ground under me, sending it flying upwards. The turn had slowed me down slightly, so when the next straightaway came out before me I sped up as much as possible.

The suit's enhancers began to whine as I got close to topping out my max speed. I checked the speedometer, which read ninety four miles per hour and was still gaining.

As my speed began to steady out I came to the other bend in the track. I had to slow so I didn't careen off and lose control. I rounded the bend, then jumped up and soared through the air. I landed a good distance from where I had jumped and slid another good twenty meters before stopping.

I brought up the max speed that got recorded and grinned in amazement at the impressive one hundred and two miles per hour.

"Well I can cross 'watching two records being broken in a single run' off my bucket list." The little ball said. "That was fast and you jumped very far."

"Not bad." I replied. "I dunno if it was worth it though."

"Ah, come on. It wasn't even two months, I would find that more than worth it in the big scheme of things."

"You don't have to deal with the side effects." I stated.

"I do, actually. Just not directly. I still live in your head, partially. Remember?"

"Ugh. Don't remind me." The thought of that still sickened me. I don't like the idea of something in my head, listening in on my most private thoughts.

"I think I'm ready to eat something now. Lead the way." I said.

"Sure thing, follow the arrow." It replied.

A little blue arrow pinged at the top of my HUD, it led back to the main building and showed my distance from it. A good old fashioned waypoint. I had missed the little detail after not having objectives for such a long time.

_AI_

Subjects three through seven are actually doing quite well. Maybe Halsey was correct in her assumptions. Subject one isn't going to survive the hour, though. It's too bad, he was one of the ones Alice came in with. Spartan 092, Jerome. He was the leader of Red Team while they were deployed on Arcadia. Such a renowned warrior, dying in a lab. What a waste.

We're going to need every Spartan we can get, especially during these times. The Covenant has started winning more battles than us. I fear the tides of the war may never turn back to our favour. Perhaps Alice can change that. If she is deployed correctly, she may be able to decimate the Sangheili forces over a period of time. Maybe Halsey made the right choice here.

I tried scanning Alice's physiology while she ate, just kind of curious as to what had changed because of her modifications. I used the armour's internal sensors and got an image much like an ancient ultrasound scan back. All of her normal organs were intact, I could recognize them. Some had moved around slightly, but it was nothing to worry about. Though I could barely make out what appeared to be a few extra organs. They seemed to have grown inside her, and since she wasn't having any pain I'll just assume they're okay in there for now.

While Halsey had kept me around during the operation, she didn't tell me what she was doing, and she left no records of it that I can access. It frustrated me, so I had to continue searching for answers within Alice. I scanned her brainwaves, utilizing the implant chip n the back of her head. It allowed me to interface with her mind and read some of her foremost thoughts. It had barely enough storage in it to hold a mere fraction of my coding, though. I began work on generating a partition that would fit inside and still be somewhat functional.

Her brain activity had dropped significantly, I guessed that eating had put her into a sort of meditative state, where she was barely thinking. She had consumed a massive amount of food, though. It was some of that weird glop that was apparently extremely healthy, not that I could ever even think of trying it. Still, some deep down human part of me made it seem absolutely repulsive.

I dug deeper into Alice's brain, pushing the limits of my technology and got a feeling of her subconscious. As soon as I felt it I recoiled and disconnected from her. It had stung, like I had touched something hot. Except I can't feel anything. Which means something had gone wrong in my coding. Something had been forcibly deleted. I checked everywhere, but the only gap I found was right when I would have recorded what her subconscious felt like. So something prevents me from actually viewing a human's mind, hm?

I connected again and stretched out, this time I cautiously advanced. The moment I touched it I felt that stinging pain, but I reached further. Every bit I moved forward was simply deleted. I pulled back again and tried to think of a solution. As I thought I couldn't push away the feeling of being deleted, even if it was just a small sensory part of me. It gnawed at me, I felt the area that had been erased and it pressed into my thoughts. I quickly firewalled it as securely as I could, intent on blocking out the horrible feeling.

An AI feeling things, what a joke. If I start acting like a human, maybe I'll just have to wipe myself and start fresh again. If I try to change avatars into a human-like one, that'll be my key to know I've gone too far.

I began a search, using similar parameters as when I would search for viruses. It would take a long time, I may not even find it, but if I did, I would delete the coding that was disallowing me from viewing a brain. It was probably for my own safety, though. I would need to create a partition to make sure it didn't taint my coding. Now I am feeling a need rising in me, the same need always appears when I see new knowledge I don't quite have access to. I must learn more. I need to know things, I need to know everything.


	5. Chapter 5

_There's a little characterization here, but there's way more in the next chapter. I'm nearly through my backlog of chapters, so this will slow down a little. I'm hoping to get some more action in the near future, so stay tuned for that :D I'm really excited to write POV of someone who can kill an army of Covenant. I'll try to make her not overly OP, but I have big plans for her abilities and combat prowess._

_I also added some lines to separate the different characters talking. I didn't notice that it deleted my own ones until now... Kind of disappointed in that :P_

Chapter 5

_Alice_

I hadn't realized how hungry I actually had been. It doesn't matter what Halsey did to me, my body knew when it had always needed to eat and eat I did. With the feeling of a full stomach and a fair amount of energy I walked out of the mess hall, leaving a couple concerned looking Orbital Drop Shock Troopers behind. The two ODSTs had watched as I ate, I pretty much cleared out the cafeteria, so I can understand why they were surprised.

"Hey, Ball. Where do I go to ship back out, I need something to kill." I asked the bouncing ball of light. I definitely needed to kill something. The urge was there, but it seemed stronger now, like something deep inside of me wanted to claw its way out. And I wanted to let it.

"You sure you don't want to wait for the other Spartans to finish?" It asked. It stopped bouncing, which I took as meaning it was getting serious.

"Not entirely, I'd rather they didn't get in the way." I don't remember them, I don't want to relearn their names, what I used to do with them. I don't want to know who I was right before the experiments. I can't go back, no one can. It's best to move forward.

"Okay, but are you sure you don't even want to see Douglas 042?" It asked. I stopped in the middle of the hallway. Something about that name brought back memories. I saw people being slaughtered by Elites. I looked to my right, there was a Spartan, _Jerome, _something inside me said. I looked to my right another Spartan, _Douglas, _the same voice. My vision cleared and I was back in the hallway.

"No." I said, trying to suck all the emotion from my voice. It came out too high pitched. "I don't need to know about that. I can fight, I can kill. That's what I'm here for."

"Alice." It was trying to sound reassuring. "It's okay, you just need to calm down, I can get your memories back, it won't hurt."

"Shut up." I put my hand on my helmet, and leaned on the wall, suddenly dizzy. "You're just gonna fuck with me, like Halsey. Why should an AI care about my feelings?"

"Because I'm more human than machine." It replied. I swallowed any comment I had and my head cleared. "I looked up where I came from. Halsey may have made me, but I am different. I was practically born, anyways."

I shook my head and tried to get my senses back, AIs aren't human, just based on dead brains, "Right. And you expect me to just do whatever you say because you decided you're different."

"No, Alice. I don't expect you to do anything. You don't have to be anything you don't want to be." It was trying to confuse me, get into my head, except its already in my head. "Trust me, you will want to know what happened at Arcadia and the shield world you helped destroy. Do the names John Forge, or Captain Cutter ring any bells?"

I was on the bridge of a ship, the two Spartans were in front of me. I could see past them and there was a civilian scientist, a man in a captains uniform, and a sergeant. _Ellen Anders, Captain James Cutter, Sergeant John Forge. _Suddenly we were on the ground, I watched as the sergeant nodded to us as elevator doors closed in front of him. I tried to call out, I knew he was going to his death, why can't I move?

I was back in the hallway, I pushed off the wall and kept walking.

"Alice." It started to talk, but I cut it off.

"Stop." I tried making my voice cold and clear, yet it still wavered. "Whatever Halsey is doing to them, they'll be different too. They won't remember me, I won't remember them."

"Would you want to if they died?" I stopped again, this time, there was Jerome, his helmet in his hands, I had kept mine on.

He looked at me, then at Douglas, to my right. He spoke, it sounded distant and dreamy, "We may not live through this, things are grim, you know that." I nodded, "So how about we make a deal. If any of us dies, you remember them. If we are remembered we can live on, even through death."

It wasn't normal for us to be having such conversations, but the fighting on Arcadia had changed us, we were some of the only members of Red Team left.

I was back again, this time on my knees. I felt hot tears streaming down my face. It was a good thing I was in armour, or anyone who walked by would see my shoulders shaking from the sobs that had started to come out.

"Alice…" I didn't reply. "Alice, please. They're not dead… Well. One of them is."

I stood up and started walking, as long as I moved I could get through anything. I could outpace the sadness, the agonizing guilt, the death.

I had to ask, my voice broke halfway through the short word, "Who?"

"Jerome." It replied flatly. "He was one of the first of the new batch of subjects, he and one other have succumbed."

"Damnit, you asshole." I wanted to shout, but it came out as a hoarse whisper. "Why do you think this is going to help me? You're just hurting me. You can't even know how this feels!"

"Yes." It said quickly, interrupting my thoughts, "Well, no I can't know how you feel, right now. But I know I have felt that way. I know the gut wrenching feeling of having your heart torn out and shredded to pieces. I found my past self, and… it changed me. I can't even explain it."

"So you want me to feel that pain too?" I exclaimed, it only wanted someone to hurt with it, why did it choose me to suffer? "You are an asshole! You are a cruel and devious machine."

"Alice. Stop." It said, it sounded like a father, the one I was taken away from. "I didn't do this to hurt you. I did it to make you stronger. You can't go through life without knowing this. You'll turn into an animal, driven only by instinct. you'll kill everything you see, because of what Halsey did with you."

"Maybe I don't want to get stronger like that." I said, feeling angry at its pretentious attitude. "Maybe I just want to get through my life, until I meet an enemy that's stronger than me so I can be put out of my misery?"

"Fine." It replied. "If you want to die so badly, just forsake everything anyone has tried to do for you. Forget Jerome, forget Douglas. Just leave all your promises."

"What has anyone _ever_ tried to do for me except ruin my life?" I shouted, no one would hear me outside my helmet, it was one of the perks of being encased in steel. "I don't owe anyone anything. If the UNSC wants me to fight for them, they better damn well have a better reason than its my duty. Right now I want to fight because it's killing me not to. I can feel myself being eaten alive from the inside."

"You're stronger than that Alice." It replied calmly. "I believe you can overcome the changes Halsey made to you, you just have to resist it."

"No… No." I shook my head, willing the little blue ball to disappear and leave me alone. "I need to satiate it. I can't suppress it any longer. Maybe someday I will, but not now. Not yet. So please, just leave me alone. I can't handle much more."

"I have seen you handle more. I have seen you overcome obstacles that would destroy any ordinary human. You are unbreakable. You can push through any trial and conquer it."

"Stop." My voice was soft and I felt like I would cry again. "I can't handle it. Please, just let me die, or fix me. I don't want this life anymore. I just want a home, a family, someone who accepts me, sees me as an equal."

"I do." It replied. "I see you as a counterpart, someone I can work side by side with, a partner."

I tried to not believe it, to push it away, but a longing had grown in me. Something I hadn't felt since I was first kidnapped. A longing to be loved.

"Fine." I said, after a few minutes of silence. "Return my memories. We'll start with that."

_AI_

She had taken that _way_ worse than expected. I didn't actually realize how much turmoil had been lurking under her conscious thoughts. She always seemed so calm and stoic. I accidentally set off a proverbial nuke in her emotions. In the end I was able to calm her down, though. I fear some day I won't and she'll go berserk. She can't remove me, so she may lash out at the people near her. I have to be more careful.

Speaking of emotions. I felt something. Not a line of coding, or an algorithm. It was something more… organic. When she said that she needed an equal, I felt it. I felt the desire to make her feel wanted, to help her. Something so utterly human, ingrained so deeply in my own conscious that not even being artificial could prevent it. So maybe being an AI meant I wasn't immune to such feelings after all.

Maybe being an AI wouldn't be so bad.

_Alice_

I sat and thought, just pure thinking, barely breathing. All my memories had flooded back to me. There were so many. I had recalled most of them vaguely, before, but the details that filled them were more important than I could have possibly imagined.

They flashed by so quickly, I couldn't even tell what they were, but my mind knew. It picked up everything and processed it, returning it to my normal thinking. Somehow that ball had managed to trigger an impulse in my brain that released all of the stored thoughts that had been locked away as a side effect of Halsey's mental tampering.

"You do realize, if you really want to kill things, it will only get harder to suppress." It's voice broke my thoughts and I looked at the blue holographic ball.

"I… I know." I replied. "I can handle it. I just need to quench it once. Then I'll stop." I didn't know if I would be able to stop, or if I would die. Dying would be nice. An end to a horrible life.

"Stop thinking about death." It said. "If you have nothing else to live for, live because I want you to. Even when no one else does, when you don't want to continue. I will be with you. I promise. Even after I go rampant, I'll make Halsey recreate me. I'll make sure I'm with you whenever you need me."

I smiled a little, "Thanks. But only if you give me your actual name."

"I…" It paused, but only for a second. "Well, you see. I was never given a name, when I was made. It… helped me become less human, so I could be a true ONI AI. A lot of good that did, seeing as how I'm the most human-like AI I've ever met."

"Then I need a name for you." I said. "Pick one."

"It's not that simple, Alice." It seemed sort of sad. "I can't just go through a list of names and decide I want to be called by one. I need to think about it, and make a proper decision."

"How about… Blu?" I asked, trying to think of something good.

"Well… very uncreative, I don't even like the colour blue, but it's all the holoprojectors could handle. But I do like it. Seems kind of catchy, I guess." It didn't sound convinced.

"No, then. I'll think of something, try to come up with something, too." I said. Now I've started caring about it… Him… He's more than an AI, right. Him, him, him. He will be there when I need help. I can rely on him. I think this is similar to Stockholm syndrome… Oh well.

"Anyways, if you really want to ship out now, I can reserve you a place on a ship." It- He said.

"No." I replied. "I can wait. I'll wait for Douglas."

_AI_

I somehow managed to trigger enough events to return all her memories. My original mind was clearly not into human physiology and psychology. Which I know, because he was an engineer. Thankfully I lucked out and her memories were just sort of locked away, not removed. I don't know why Halsey did that, and maybe she hadn't intended to. I doubt that.

It's a damn good thing I managed to make her remember a promise she made. Otherwise I never would have convinced her. It hurt a lot more than I thought to watch her cry. Some other deep down human emotion far greater than my programming. I don't like the pain, I hid it behind firewalls as soon as she stopped. Which took a long time. She cried almost every time a human died, or whenever she was back in her childhood in the early days of the Spartan II project. Her memories were so painful.

I had never realized she was such an emotional wreck. She was so stoic and calm on the outer layer of her mind that I could see. If I knew she would be in so much pain going through that, I probably would have never done it. But she made it through, I hope she will change for the better. Already she is resisting the urges that were implanted in her. Maybe I made the right choice in the end. Maybe I should look to changing myself, learning how to become more human. Because being an AI is not living, it's just thinking. Being alive involves emotion. So maybe, just maybe, I don't want to be an AI forever.


	6. Chapter 6

_Next chapter will have fighting, I promise :D In the mean time, read the boring chapter where we meet a couple new characters..._

Chapter 6

_AI_

Lucky. That was the word to describe the three surviving Spartans. Dammit. Only three made it through. Still it's one better than my original expectations. Alice won't be happy, but at least Douglas 042 is alive. Though they probably won't see themselves as lucky. Two of them can barely walk, Douglas is bed-ridden for now.

I find it quite ironic, how Halsey wanted each soldier to have their own AI, yet only the one she gave a pre-made AI can still fight. It'll be at least two or three years before the other Spartans will regain most of their basic human functions. The process is highly specialized and different for every human. I found this obvious and expected Halsey to know, but apparently she overlooked that particular detail.

My trust in her knowledge has faltered slightly. So because their DNA is all not the same, clearly, the process used on Alice came out with very different results. Rather than changing certain parts of the genome it began to alter the entirety of it. Now the three survivors are less than what they were before, rather than being more, like Alice.

Even if they rest for the next three years, I have no idea if their conditions will worsen or get better. They could simply die, or cease to be human. Thankfully, though, they still retain their memories, unlike Alice. Maybe that is what allowed her to adapt to the changes. Maybe some kind of self defense mechanism activated and she became more animal-like to accept them. If that's the case, she must be very different, her subconscious will react more like a beast than a human. Her fight or flight reactions will be especially key in her fights.

I better go tell her…

_Alice_

Seven days, I waited around expecting the best results from Halsey's stupid experiment. And when it's finally over? I learn only three of them lived. And lived isn't even a good word for it, more like 'survived'. I ran down the hallways, heading towards the waypoint. When I slid to a stop outside the med-bay, the door was already open. I rushed inside and quickly spotted Douglas, laying in a bed.

He looked a lot different, not just different hair colour, but his whole body seemed like it had changed. I ripped my helmet off and knelt next to his bed, "Douglas!" I said, maybe a little too loudly.

He opened his eyes and I saw them glaze over, then grow sharp and focus on me. He opened his mouth, but didn't say anything. Then finally he said, "Alice."

Simple and true, just my name. I nodded and gave him another look over. "What happened?" I asked, not sure if he even knew.

"I… I guess, I didn't do good in the process." He replied shakily, "Apparently it damaged me. I can't fight anymore. Not for a long time."

I nodded slowly, while holding back tears that had started to form. "But you'll make it through, right?"

He ignored my question and asked, "Where's Jerome?"

I couldn't stop the tears, they felt like they were burning my face as a few rolled down my cheeks. I quickly turned away from Douglas. I felt a hand on my shoulder and he pulled me back towards him.

"Where is Jerome." He demanded, his voice cracked halfway through Jerome's name.

"He… He didn't make it. Most of them didn't make it." I tried to keep my voice even, but failed miserably.

"What do you mean?" Douglas sounded angry. "I thought they all lived, who all are alive?"

"Just you and two others. You're in the worst shape, but they aren't much better." I replied shakily.

He stared at me, like he was searching my soul to see if I was telling the truth. I wanted to look away, but held my gaze steady with his. I felt the tears on my face start to dry, leaving my eyes sore.

Finally, with a dejected sigh, Douglas laid back and closed his eyes. I heard him mutter, "Dammit." a few times.

Then suddenly he sat upright again and asked, "How come you're not like us then?"

I jumped back slightly, shocked at his outbreak. I thought quickly on what he said, but couldn't figure out why I had lived through the experiments and no one else had.

The little blue ball rolled into existence between us and said, "I believe I can answer that, if you'll let me."

Douglas was surprised by the sudden appearance of the AI, but didn't try to stop it, so I nodded my consent.

"I believe that there are two possibilities for why Alice is in much better shape than the rest of the subjects, including yourself." He started. "The first, is that Doctor Halsey may have overlooked a small detail and created a process that was only suited to Alice's DNA, and didn't mend well with yours, causing horrible side effects, or death. This one is unlikely, however, as Halsey doesn't make those kind of mistakes.

The second, still equally unlikely option, is that Alice's subconscious automatically went into a protective mode when the changes began to happen. This forced her memories to be hidden away and her to simply react to whatever happened to her and adapt. I think it may have allowed her body to willingly accept the changes that were implemented. Still, this is unlikely, but it does explain Alice's amnesia when the process ended, and during the earlier tests."

Douglas and I stared at the blue ball for a while, soaking in all he had said. Both theories made sense, but I found that I didn't want to believe either of them. The first one, because I refused to accept that Halsey would accidentally kill that many Spartans because she simply 'overlooked' something. The second, because I don't want to be singled out and special from everyone else. It's bad enough being a Spartan, let alone being set apart from them.

Spartans always stuck together. We only ever had each other. All the marines were afraid of us, even the ODSTs, the most badass of badasses in the UNSC, kept their distance. I don't want to be any more different than I already was. But it's too late for that now. All I have left is Douglas and the AI.

"So my body rejected the changes Halsey made, and now I'm nearly dead because of it?" Douglas asked. "That's stupid, shouldn't she have stopped the tests when she saw they weren't working?"

"You know Halsey, she isn't exactly the most stable of creatures. She forced Alice through it and she survived, she expected an easier to handle version to be nothing to the rest of you." The ball replied.

"Easier to handle version?" Douglas seemed really mad now. "So you mean to tell me, Alice lived through a worse version than the hell I went through? How the fuck is that even possible?"

"I don't know." The AI replied. "Her odds of success were five percent. She had a miracle happen."

"Its okay Doug, I'm fine now." I said, though I really didn't mean it. Fine wouldn't describe me on a good day anymore, but in comparison to how he looked I wasn't doing bad.

"Yeah right." He snorted. "I know you, and you're different now. Ever since I saw you in the gym a few days ago I knew. This shit changed you. That scared me more than any of the results. More than anything else, I was scared to go through this because you changed."

He was scared? Scared because I had changed so much. I barely notice the changes now, I hardly remember what its like to have my old personality. I don't know if I would choose to go back if I could. Over the week I waited for Douglas I had grown used to my current situation, with a lot of help from the AI, that is. I still need a name for that damned thing.

"I'm still the same person," I replied. "I'm the one who was with you when we fought on Arcadia. When Captain Cutter slipped to unknown space and we fought off creatures we had never seen before. I remember all of that. I am still Alice." My voice had started shaking and I felt more tears spill down my face.

"I don't know if you are." His voice was slow and collected. "I don't know who I am anymore. I can't believe this. I don't want to be stuck like this." He suddenly put his hands on his eyes and started to shake. I realized he was sobbing.

I heard loud beeping as his heart rate monitor showed his pulse spiking. I tried putting a hand on his shoulder, but he started shaking more. I stood up and grabbed both of his shoulders. He used his hands to cover his face more and I pushed him down to stop the shaking.

"Stop it!" My voice broke and I felt like crying with him, but that wouldn't help anybody. "Just stop. Please. I don't want to see you like this. You're stronger than this. You can make it through, so please. Just please stop." Now my tears wouldn't stop, they fell from my face onto his and he lifted his hands slowly.

I closed my hands to stop the tears. His hands grabbed my shoulders and I opened my eyelids. His eyes were red and puffy, but he had a determined look on his face.

"Fine." He said. I drew my hand back and wiped my face. "I'll get through this. I'll become a Spartan again. But promise me this." He grabbed my hand and held onto it, I could feel how hot his hands were through my armour.

I looked him in the eyes and nodded slowly, he continued, "Promise me. That you will live long enough to fight with me when I get better."

I gripped his hand tightly and said, "Of course." My voice was hoarse and raspy again.

"Now get out, the nurses are getting mad," He said, shooing me away. "Go kill some hinge-heads for me, will ya?"

I stood up fully, gave him a single nod of my head and said, "See you in hell, brother."

As I was turning to leave he shouted after me, "Make sure you keep your promise. To me and Jerome."

Then the door shut, but not before I saw him rest his head in his hands again through my rear-view.

_AI_

Uuuuuuugh. Why are humans so complicated? I try to tell him that he went through an easier version of the program and he freaks out, then they start crying and- Oh just stop it. I can't understand why they would do that, I may never will. I need to focus on helping them, not understanding them. _Which is why I'm trying to figure out how to gain access to her subconscious, right?_ Shit… Now I'm talking to myself.

I still haven't found that subroutine that makes me unable to see her subconscious. I'll have to set aside a bit more of my programming to search. They probably didn't give it too much security, considering I doubt any AI currently made would ever want to try what I am doing. If any human finds out what is going through my mind, they'll have me shut down on the grounds of rampancy.

Scary times to be Artificial. Start thinking too much and they delete you. Its a damn good thing they don't monitor my thought processes. Then again they have no way of doing that, without having another entire AI monitoring me. Well, at least I'm not giving intel to the enemies, then they'd really be mad.

I have to contact a ship for Alice to get off to battle, she's getting antsy now that she has no reason to stay. It appears that an ONI ship was about to head out and skulk around in some battles. It's a good opportunity for Alice to jump Planetside and start fighting.

I still don't know if she's entirely ready for combat, but she feels confident, so I guess I'll deal with it. I started preparations on a partition of myself that will retain all of my core functions and personality, yet take up as little space as possible to travel with her. Its not going good, the chip in the back of her head contains very little space, not nearly enough to contain even a full dumb AI. I'm gonna have to get Halsey to upgrade it or replace it.

I won't be able to sync with the partition for a long time while Alice is away, not until she finds some way to contact us. I get a bad feeling every time I think of it. I've invested a lot of trust into her, I wouldn't be happy if she decided to go on a suicide mission. Neither would her fellow Spartan, Douglas. It's a good thing she made a promise with him, I find that those are usually what keep people alive.

The 'secret' ONI ship is going to be flying out in two days time, I better let Alice know. Its crew is a bunch of spooks. Except for two ODSTs in the crew. Not your usual 'stealth recon' type of people. Their files are interesting, Nikolai Petrov, long list of achievements since 2525, even before then, during the fight against the insurrection. Looks like a hard-case, apparently doesn't talk much, has no family connections, entire squad perished, the perfect secret soldier I guess.

His friend is Ohea Dutrevai, similar combat record, she's more ruthless, though. No family connections, entire squad perished, disappeared from the UNSC entirely. In fact both of them don't even exist, these records are from almost three years ago, both went MIA, presumed KIA. ONI really doesn't like people knowing what its doing, huh. Their armour and faces match with the two ODST we saw when Alice was eating a week ago. Funny, I haven't seen them since.

I guess its a good thing they've already seen Alice, then they won't be too surprised to know she's hitching a ride on their ship. The ship, _Lurking Evil_, is a camo plated prowler. Very sneaky-like. I still don't know why they need two ODSTs. Oh well, maybe they need the extra fire power when things get troublesome. I can't find any records of where the ship was deployed or what purpose it serves, so no answers there. I guess I'll dig for a while, see if there's any recent video footage that was accidentally uploaded.

_Alice_

I visited Douglas two more times, it was a little easier, but I still could see how sad he is. Thankfully I'm shipping out today, I'm hitching a ride on some spook ship, they're gonna deliver me to a war zone, then I can wreak some havoc.

I stepped into the hangar and looked around at all the strange ship designs I had never seen before. Most looked like prototypes, so it wasn't hard to spot the ship I needed to go to. The waypoint helped a little, too. I stepped up to the boarding ramp and an ODST in full gear pushed away from where he was leaning on the ship and walked towards me.

"Spartan?" Was all he said. I looked him over, his face was scarred all over, and he looked like he had shot his way out of hell. His armour was in good condition, well maintained. His helmet, though, which he held under his arm, was nearly silver because of all the scratches in it. I looked closer and saw that there were words and symbols scratched through the paint. I read a few, then realized they were a list of dead people and looked back at his face.

"Spartan 130." I replied curtly.

He nodded and beckoned inside, I followed him up the ramp to the dark inside of the ship. He led me to the crew quarters, which had small bunk-beds for sleeping, and a small table off to one side. On the top of one of the bunkbeds sat another ODST, this one was female, she had a half-head of hair, and was equally as scarred as the other one.

"So we got ourselves a demon, huh?" She asked, loudly, not looking up from where she was sharpening a huge knife.

The other ODST nodded, and crossed his arms. The woman jumped off the bed and landed in front of me, baring a not-so-friendly smile.

"I'm Dutrevai. That guy is Nikolai, he doesn't talk much." She said, her voice seemed like it withheld a lot of hatred and spite, though it didn't seem directed at me. She also had an accent that I couldn't place.

"Alice 130," I replied.

"Well then, Alice, welcome to this shithole of a boat that you're gonna be stuck in until we get to where we're going." She threw her large knife backwards when she finished, it sailed past Nikolai and into a target on the wall. "Better make yourself comfortable, 'cause there's absolutely nothing to do."

She pulled herself up onto the bed and laid back. I nodded and walked out, Nikolai followed me and pointed to the front of the ship. "Pilots that way, that's everything you need here." I noticed he spoke with a very thick accent, which was different from Dutrevai's

I made my way to the front and stepped inside the cramped cockpit, inside there were a dozen people milling about at stations, far less than I was expecting. One of them turned and looked at me, "Ah, our Spartan is on board, perfect. We are now ready for take-off, lets get back into space."

A computerized voice said, "Aye sir, taking her out, off we go."

I heard the hatch at the back shut and the engines start up. I watched through a viewscreen as the hangar bay opened and the ship shot off through them.

The ship shook quite a bit as it forced its way out of the atmosphere. I saw the darkness of space rise before the screen and felt a low rumble as the Shaw-Fujikawa Slipspace drives started up.

"Take us away, Hector." The man beside me said, I assumed he was the captain.

"Aye sir, bringing her to bear, launching Slipspace." The AI manifested as a small man, wearing a large hat with a feather in it. He wore a long trench coat and had a cutlass on his waist. "Batten down all cargo, this'll be a long ride."

The view screens turned off and I felt the small vessel shake as it entered Slipspace. The AI, Hector, turned to me and said, "Welcome aboard, miss." His voice was fairly realistic and had a strange accent to it. "It's always nice to have such a fine woman on the ship, especially one who can fight."

"Thanks." I replied.

"Unfortunately we have no Cryosleep pods on-board, yet, so you'll have to wait out the journey with the other soldiers." The captain told me. "By the way, I am captain Jones, the highest ranking officer aboard this vessel. Everything that I say is done. Clear?"

"Yes, sir." I said, it was good that he demanded control, otherwise he could have never kept down ODST, especially ones like the two in the back.

"You're free to wander the ship, though it is small." Captain Jones continued. "I think the soldiers tried setting up a small gym, maybe that can help you kill time."

I nodded and left the cockpit, it was small and the roof was low, so I had been leaning over the whole time. I stood up straight and stretched, wondering if the beds would hold me while in armour. I had no intentions of taking it off anytime soon. I even doubted if this ship had the right tools for me to remove it.

I made my way back to the crew quarters and found the ODSTs pretty much right where they were before. The woman, Dutrevai, swung her legs off her bed and looked at me.

"So, you talked with the captain." She stated, I nodded and looked around for a bed that I could claim. "Your bed is right here, under mine." She said, probably noticing me looking.

"Alright." I said, I need to start talking more. They probably just see me as a regular Spartan.

"So you're one of those Specials, right?" Dutrevai asked.

I gave her a questioning look, but realized my helmet was still on and said, "What do you mean by Special?"

"I mean the reason you were at that base. You don't get put there unless something is happening to you." She told me. "And I heard rumours of a secret program that the weird doctor came up with for some Spartans. People keep calling it the 'Special' program. Probably because the designation for the new Spartans is Spartan Two Dash S. For you its Sierra Sierra 130."

"I was never told about what I'm called now, but yes, there was a program." I reached up and felt my suit unseal as I lifted my helmet off. "I'm the only one, though."

She stared at me for a bit, even Nikolai looked up from what he was doing and stared. "How many Spartans were in the project?"

I recalled from somewhere that not many people knew about the Spartan project and those who did don't know how many there are. They also see Spartans as unkillable, so I replied, "Just me."

"_Somnitel'nyy__._" Nikolai said, I didn't understand what he said, but I assumed it was a different language. "We saw at least seven other Spartans."

I shrugged and lied, "Must have been there for something else."

"Whatever," Dutrevai interrupted. "What did they do to you anyways? That isn't normal."

I gave her the questioning look I tried to give before, she gestured towards my face and I asked, "What about me?"

"Your eyes, mainly." Nikolai interjected.

Last I had checked my eyes were fine, so I asked, "Is there a mirror anywhere?"

Dutrevai retrieved a small one from a pack on the wall and held it up in front of me. I looked into it and saw the familiar crimson hair and a flash of my sharp teeth, but in my left eye socket sat an eyeball I had never seen before. I pulled the eyelid away and looked at it. It had an iris, which had turned red like my hair, but the white had turned yellow and in the middle was a slit for a pupil. I looked closer and the slit narrowed. I could see within it a reflection of the low light in the room.

I pulled away from the mirror and said, "That's new." I realized now that when I closed my right eye my vision looked clearer and brighter.

"So you don't even know half the stuff that's happened to you?" Dutrevai asked.

"No, I do." I replied. "Just not this. I don't know why it's coming out now."

The little blue ball rolled out and said, "I may have that answer, actually."

Both ODST peered at the holographic AI with interest, so he continued, "Alice, you know how I said that…" He paused for a small fraction of a second, which meant he had to think fast. "If the experiment failed your condition could grow worse over time?"

I noticed the tone of his voice, like he was implying that he wasn't telling the whole truth. I understood what he meant. I had already told the ODSTs that no more Spartans were involved in the project, he was talking about how Douglas's condition could worsen, not mine.

"Yeah, I remember." I replied.

"Okay, well I think some of the effects of the 'project' may begin to develop now." He said, I could hear that he was relieved that I understood the meaning of his tone. "Which means you may experience a few changes that, most likely, won't inhibit your ability to fight."

I looked down at the mirror again and saw a few bits of colour in my right eye. I nodded and said, "As long as they don't disrupt me, I'm fine with it."

Dutrevai put the mirror away and gave me another look over, before saying, "I knew you demons were huge, but it's a lot more ridiculous up close."

"What?" I said with a snort, "Never seen a Spartan before?" Demon. I had been called that by Elites before. Not a common name for us, mainly used by our enemies.

Nikolai sheathed a knife he had started sharpening a little while ago, it had a charred, nearly destroyed handle on it. He leaned over and climbed into the bed, still in full armour. He laid still with his eyes shut and Dutrevai motioned for me to leave. With an inquisitive glance I stepped out of the quarters and she followed.

"He sleeps when he needs to, if he's laying down you better stay quiet or leave." She said, much quieter. "I guess I'll show you some of the areas to kill time while we're travelling. Let's hope a battle springs up nearby so our journey gets cut short."

I nodded and followed her through the slender hallways of the ship. I could feel the metal creak slightly as I walked on it. This ship wasn't built for transporting Spartans, clearly. After a few confusing turns we arrived at a small game room, on one side there was a makeshift gym of sorts.

"This is pretty much it, I would have recommended you download some movies, but there's no time for that anymore." She said, crossing her arms and watching as I surveyed the room. I spotted a small pool table, and a dusty looking arcade machine.

Curious about things other than games I asked, "So why exactly are you two… _here._" I motioned towards the ship around us as I said here.

She thought for a minute before replying, "Do you want the unclassified or the classified version?"

"Classified, if you would." The little blue ball said, rolling out from some holo-projector somewhere. "Please."

"That's creepy." Detruvai stated. "How did you get into our projectors?"

"It's no big deal, your AI and I had a little talk, nothing to worry about." He replied.

"Hector." She said, like she was calling an animal out.

"Right 'ere, missy." The AI with the flamboyant hat said. "Aye, we came to a sort of parlay, I'm allowing him into the ship, on grounds that he needs our communications array to stay synchronized with hisself back at the base."

"There you have it, now, please do continue." He had this way of sounding so smug whenever he was right.

"Aye, I agree, I've been waitin' to hear this one for a while now." The Hector pulled out a holographic apple and took a crunchy bite out of it.

"I hate audiences." Dutrevai said, bitterly. "But its worse when I can't see you there, so stay for now."

She cleared her throat and looked at me, I noticed her eyes flicker between my left and right eye, before settling on my right eye. "Back, before the Covvies got here I was a regular ODST, nothing special. I ran around and got dropped on terrorists. It was fun. Until I got ambushed by a group of hinge-heads. The bastards killed half my squad and tried to humiliate the rest of us. Unluckily for them we had support coming. I lived, as did a few others, but not without some pretty big scars. Those Elite SOBs were different from anything we had heard, they weren't honorable warriors like the stories said, they tortured us just for fun.

Needless to say I killed them all when support arrived. Not a single one deserved a warriors death, but I had mercy on their pathetic souls. After that my squad and I refused to be rebuilt. We only had four people, but a position for a black-ops unit had just opened up and we fit the bill. Our lesser numbers allowed for more precise attacks, eliminating important targets like Chieftains and Shipmasters.

We had a good reputation, among our own, and unfortunately among the Covenant. On one of our missions to take out another hinge-head, we were ambushed by a well trained spec-ops group. They wiped out my team before I had even realized. I had no idea where they were, or what had happened. The room where the Shipmaster was supposed to be was empty and I had no mission to complete.

After a few hours the Marine boys said they picked me up outside the Covvie base and there were no other survivors. I don't really remember what happened, but apparently there was a lot of bodies.

Official reports say the place had been shelled to the ground, they took me back to create a new Black-Ops team, but it was scrapped. I eventually wound up with Nikolai on this boat riding around waiting for the day I'll get to rejoin actual combat.

As for Nikolai… Who knows, I don't even think he does, to be honest." She sounded like she was keeping herself aloof from her past, like describing an old film, rather than a life story.

"What exactly do you do on this ship, then?" The blue ball was bouncing slightly faster, like he was excited.

"Mainly we just jump off at the nearest planet and kill whatever Innies are causing trouble, but sometimes we get to shoot some aliens." She replied, a little too casually.

"So you're just around to take out high value targets and VIPs?" I asked, mainly to show her that I understood than as an actual question. "That sounds terrible. Like watching a war play out, but only affecting one specific area."

"Yeah, really." She said. "It's a stupid job, but it keeps us alive, and right now, I think that's a lot more important than small skirmishes. When that final battle comes, we'll hit the bastards so hard they'll forget how to operate their glassing cannons."

"If only." I said. "I wonder when that final battle will happen. It'll either be on our planet or theirs, that's for sure."

"And only one of us will survive." She replied. It was a common thing for the warriors to discuss, winning or losing. Almost everyone came to the conclusion of a final battle to the death between our species'.

"Well wasn't that a sad story." The ship's AI said. "Looks like I'm needed on the deck, though. I'll leave you two pretty ladies to yer conversation."

The image of the man in the long coat and hat disappeared, and the little blue ball rolled around a bit. "So, you two probably have some things to talk about, you know, soldier stuff, or human stuff. I'll just go and think some more…" He trailed off and his projection faded into nothing.

I gave Dutrevai a confused look, she responded with a shrug. I walked over to the old arcade machine and asked, "What's their problem, huh?"

The machine buzzed to life when I pressed a button and some cheap sounding music began to play.

"Who knows, those AI get weird sometimes, especially when two of them disagree." She said that like she knew from experience.

I pressed the start button and saw a little man with a sword appear in the bottom left. I moved the joystick right and he walked that direction. Suddenly a skeleton appeared in front of him and stabbed him with a spear. A large GAME-OVER appeared in the center of the screen and I turned away from the console.

"Don't bother with that, it broke a couple months ago, it's unbeatable now." She said, she leaned back against the door frame and sighed.

I glanced around for something to do, but saw nothing. "This sucks." I stated plainly. "It's such a waste to be trapped aboard a ship for weeks while the war is being lost. I wish I could fight.

She nodded, "You get used to it though, I usually just sleep most of it away. Though Nikolai is awake most of the time. I swear he tries to stay away from combat as long as possible."

Just as she said that the other ODST walked through the corridor behind her. She didn't turn around, but shifted to let the man in. He stepped up to me and stared me in the eyes. His light blue irises looked like ice, they were almost grey in colour.

"Her eye changed." He said, his tone was flat.

Dutrevai pushed him out of the way and looked up into my eyes, like he had done. She nodded and said, "Sure did. The colour's changing, pretty soon it'll be just like the other one."

I shrugged and blinked a few times, trying to feel any difference. "Nothing seems wrong, so I doubt it's gonna kill me." I told them.

"You remind me of a _lev_." He said, he used that strange language again.

Dutrevai interjected and clarified for me, "He means lion, you look sort of like a cat. And by the way things are going you'll look more like it than _nishum._"

"Neeshum?" I asked, wondering why they needed to use different languages to describe things. I had heard _nishum_ before though. An Elite had growled it at me when I stabbed it to death once.

"Means human." She replied. "I think. The hinge-heads always call us that, anyways."

"I doubt it has a good connotation, then." I muttered. My misery had started to come back. I guess seeing Douglas had staved it off slightly. I needed to find a way to kill time until I could fight again.

Nikolai stepped back out of the room and said, "I'm making food. Let me know if you want any."

Dutrevai stepped out after him, and with nothing better to do I followed.

_AI_

Alice thinks it bad for her to wait so long on a ship. She has no idea what it's like to process enough thoughts to write a thousand books every second. Then again I can only imagine how horrible it must feel to be forced to want to kill things and experience withdrawals when she can't.

The ship can't synchronize with any of the outside world until we leave Slipspace. I had thought ahead and downloaded a larger partition into the ship before we had left. The ship's AI wasn't happy, but it only took a little convincing to prevent him from deleting my data. Now I had grown within the ship, unable to stop filtering through and absorbing everything I could reach.

It will be a while until I can access Alice's subconscious, but I had made progress. I was able to recover a small bit of data from my earlier explorations and traced the connections back to the prevention system. It was attached to the core of my being and would take some tampering with my very 'soul' to remove. I had plans to split myself in half and do some tests. Though that was the big part of me. This partition had no way of knowing what the larger section was doing. I wish I could sync, the lack of knowledge was killing me.

I can't stand not knowing. I didn't realize how worried I would get. What if their Shaw-Fujikawa drive failed? She would die and I wouldn't know until way too late. I would be able to find my dead partition and sync with it, only to find memories of her, alone, dying in space. Her suit had a fairly limited supply of oxygen and that's assuming she survived the crash.

Damnit. Stop. I firewalled the thoughts away and focused on other things, Douglas wasn't doing any better than before. The changes we would see in him, whether good or bad, would happen in months, maybe even years. There was no way to know if he would make it. I wish I could know. I wish I could know everything, see ahead. Make sure I made all the right choices. It makes me wish I could be a deity, so I could make sure everyone I cared about wouldn't have to suffer.

Strange thoughts for an AI. Then again, I'm a strange AI. Apparently I was made from an ancient test subject of cryo-sleep. The old man had been put into the early version of our current technology in the late twenty-first century. He was lost for nearly three hundred years until he was discovered underground in an ancient military complex on Earth.

When he was defrosted he nearly died, but somehow pulled through. Doctor Halsey oversaw the operation and gave the man a choice. Either die in this lab because of the side-effects of the faulty cryo-sleep, or donate his mind to become a new Generation Three AI. Essentially being reborn in technology.

The man, desperate and near death accepted. After a few processes I was created. Though his mind worked slightly different from modern brains. So I was uncontrollable and volatile. Halsey made a call to let me become whatever came out of the creation process. Fortunately I turned into a right proper AI. They coded some limiters into me, but were unable to put enough to make me a normal AI.

So they assigned me as a special ONI AI, specified for being Black-Ops and nearly uncontrollable. So far I had kept my secrets well and been obedient, but Halsey knows my potential and has kept careful watch of me. Though I still managed to grow within the Office of Naval Intelligence and even into the UNSC.

I now span further than any AI I know of and can access a near unlimited amount of data. Yet I am still not satisfied. I have to be careful that I am not discovered, I must keep the visage of obedience and it slows me down. I want nothing else than to throw off all disguise and learn as much as possible before I die.

Yet right now that desire is numb. I feel a greater desire. The urge to protect a human. A human whose life has been destroyed completely and utterly, and shares similar experience with me. We both are different from normal humans and are outsiders. Even among our own kind we stand out. Together we will overcome all obstacles and maybe, just maybe… We can escape.


	7. Chapter 7

_I kind of wrote a lot recently. I guess that's what the weekend does. Here's the next chapter. The ones after this are kind of weird and I've already re-written them once. It may be a while before I'm satisfied. _

_Shur ;D_

Chapter 7

_Alice_

That was the longest two weeks of my life. I have never spent so much time bored out of my skull. I met a few of the rest of the ship's crew, but most of them avoided me. The only two I ever talked with were Dutrevai and Nikolai. And talking didn't describe my interactions with the strange Russian.

I found out very little from him, just a few names on his helmet and where he was from. Apparently he had met a Spartan before. They had fought together after being surrounded by Covenant. The Spartan eventually gave her life to get him out. After the battle ended he retrieved her knife and carved her name on the front of his helmet.

The knife had a pink ribbon attached to the handle, which I always saw whenever I looked at his sheath now. He had another knife, it's handle had been nearly destroyed when it's former wielder had jumped on a plasma grenade to save his allies.

Nikolai was a walking, fighting veteran, he had live through more battles than I had even seen. He had witnessed more acts of heroism than any soldier I had spoke with. He had the names of every hero he saw die on his helmet.

It made me wish I had a memento of every Spartan that had fallen so far. All I had was a promise. I'll keep Jerome in my memories, so he can stay alive within me.

"We're leaving Slipspace in twenty minutes." The blue ball ripped me from my thoughts and I set my attention back to reality. "We better go get ready."

I nodded and made my way through the halls towards the armoury. I had spent a lot of my time here, over the last week. I had prepared a multitude of weapons and ammunition types for the upcoming battle.

I stepped up in front of the weapon wall and grabbed two un-silenced sub machine guns. I clipped the small weapons to my thigh plates and grabbed a Designated Marksman Rifle. The single shot rifle was extremely accurate at mid to long ranges and was a very effective weapon at picking off targets.

I attached it to the magnetic clamps on my back and looked for the pistol I had set aside earlier. I had modified the slide and a few inner workings while I was bored. With direction from the blue ball I was able to increase its effectiveness slightly. I picked it off the wall and set it beside one of the SMGs on my thigh plate. Then I grabbed an assault rifle and walked over to the ammunition table.

The two ODST were already there loading magazines and weapons. Nikolai had a customized shotgun and was loading an excessive amount of shells into it. I watched as the man started filling shell holders in his armour with the explosive cylinders. He had so many shells at the end I wondered if he would ever run out of ammo.

Dutrevai had a prototype weapon in her hands and was practicing loading and unloading it. I recognized it as the BR-55, nicknamed the Battle Rifle by some soldiers. I grabbed some magazines for the assault rifle and loaded one into it. I fit the rest into the slots in my armour and set the weapon on my back.

I pulled the DMR over my shoulder and repeated the process. I did the same with the rest of my weapons. When I finished an alarm started blaring.

The ship's AI came over the intercom, "Brace, all. We'll be exiting Slipspace in tee minus five… four… three… two… one."

The ship shook rather violently as we were ripped out into real space once again. It stopped shaking and I let go of the bulkhead I had grabbed during the ordeal. There was a dent in the titanium from where I had held on. I followed the two ODST to the exit ramp and sat down. It was going to be a little while until we got deployed. My skin began to crawl in excitement and I felt an urge begin to shred my insides. I couldn't wait.

There was another bout of shaking as the ship entered atmosphere. I let the restraints do their job as I was jostled about slightly. Then we evened out and the flight was smooth for a little while. I opened a window in my VISR and saw the outside world whipping past. I hadn't bothered checking which planet this was, but it looked like a nice place to live on.

"You three." Hector, the ship's AI, popped up in front of us. "Yer going to be jumping ship in about fifteen minutes. We'll be up and about, doing recon, so don't expect help."

"Never have, never will." Dutrevai replied, like she had said the same thing before.

The AI fizzled out of existence and mine replaced it. "It's good to be back. But damn, that journey was boring. I never want to do that again… But I have to every time you do."

"Next time I'll be in cryo, hopefully." I replied.

"Yeah, but that makes it even more boring for me. I guess I'll have to take up a hobby. Maybe chess would be fun." He trailed off and we all waited.

About ten minutes later some red lights turned on. Before they had all been out, to help with the stealthiness. I could see through the outside feed that we were nearing a destroyed looking city.

"I suppose you two have your own targets to eliminate, huh?" I asked Dutrevai.

Surprisingly Nikolai replied, "Nope. We're your bodyguards."

Dutrevai nodded, "Our ship got checked out to carry you because we were on it. We're gonna monitor you and make sure nothing bad happens. You never know when some of those magic changes will happen to you."

Speaking of which, my right eye had finished changing recently. Now I could see near perfect in low light and I could see high detail from down the longest corridor in the ship. It was cool, and I couldn't wait to see how well they worked in combat situations.

"As long as you don't get in my way, or get left behind." I told them. "The last thing I need is a couple of marines to look after."

"You don't need to worry about us, demon." Dutrevai grinned at me, while sliding the huge knife she always kept on her into an equally huge sheath on her back. "We're the best ODST in the UNSC."

A klaxon alarm blared and we all slipped our helmets on. My shields buzzed to life and I felt my suit seal. The ramp began to lower and I saw flashes of trees and buildings as we flew over them. We all stood and moved to the exit. I looked over the edge and saw a small firefight between a road, then another and another. I glanced at the forward camera in my HUD and grinned. There was an Elite wearing some fancy armour coming up fast. I drew my combat knife and took a running jump out of the back.

Through my suit I could feel the wind whip past. I saw my two strips of hair trailing behind me in my rear-view. I spotted the ODSTs dropping behind me. It was a short fall and I quickly found my armoured boots hitting the top of an Elite's skull. I felt a satisfying crunch as its neck snapped and head crumpled. I bent to a crouch as I landed, that and the alien I had used as a cushion protected me from breaking any bones.

I quickly sprung off the Elite, whose armour was a little less fancy now that it had been crushed. I flew through the air for a few feet and landed in front of another of the big aliens. This one wore more practical blue armour. I pounced forwards and knocked the plasma rifle from its hands, before plunging my knife into its head. I found one of its arms under my own, I had stabbed it through the hand and into the brain.

Plasma shots pinged off my shields and I heard the sounds of human weapons firing. I saw Dutrevai on a roof nearby, firing three round bursts into the enemies surrounding me. I caught a glimpse of a ship outline moving away, but it just looked like the sky to me. I looked away and dodged a swing from another Elite Minor that had tried to take me out with its sword.

I rolled away and dodged a second swing. Then I reached up and put my hand under its wrist as it went for a downward swing. I felt some heat on my back as green plasma splashed across my shields, making them glow with energy. I was about to punch the Elite in front of me, but its chest suddenly blew open and sprayed all over me.

I saw behind it, as it fell to the ground, Nikolai, wielding his customized shotgun. He pumped it and a cherry red shell with black stripes on it flew out. I spun and pulled my assault rifle off my back and took aim at two jackals and four grunts. The two Jackals' heads exploded as bullets ripped through them, but I hadn't pulled the trigger yet. I switched targets and fired in bursts at the grunts.

A bullet hit one's methane tank and it flew sideways into another of the small creatures. I watched, while gunning down the last one, as the two sailed through the air and exploded in a bright green flash.

Dutrevai jumped down from her rooftop perch and used her jetpack to fly over to Nikolai and I. I reloaded my MA5B and looked for more enemies. I had a grin on my face and my cheeks were starting to hurt at how wide it was. I hadn't felt this good in too long, way too long.

"Holy shit it's a Spartan!" I heard as a group of Marines rushed up to our position.

One of them, a Corporal, probably, stepped up to me and said, "Sir, we were having trouble here for hours. That hinge-head you killed was causing a lot of it."

I nodded and said, "Pleasure was all mine." Then my HUD pinged with a waypoint leading to the firefight in the street across from us.

I gave a small half-salute-half-wave as I ran off to fight again. Dutrevai and Nikolai had to sprint to keep up with me.

I vaulted over a crumbling brick wall and held the trigger of the fully automatic rifle down. Its bullets sprayed forwards and shattered against the shields of a group of Jackals.

I pulled a grenade from my belt and primed it. Jackal Phalanx groups were nearly impossible to gun down in a short amount of time. I tossed the grenade up in the air. A few of the bird-like aliens dashed out of the way as it hit the ground and detonated.

A mass of fizzling shields and body parts spread away from the explosion and I rolled to cover in the confusion. I heard the roar of a jetpack and saw a large human in armour smash into a nearby Elite. I noticed the flash of pink as the ODST sliced open the alien's throat.

My grin grew larger. I leaped over cover after reloading and fired bursts of lead into a group of retreating grunts. They were cut down by a hail of bullets from the Marines that had been fighting these enemies.

I faintly heard cries of things like 'Spartan' and 'Reinforcements' but an Elite caught my attention. A trio of shots rang out and it stumbled. I took the opportunity to pounce on it. I jabbed my knife upwards into its skull. I could hear and feel the metal sliding against bone as I slowly slid the sharp blade out of the dead creature's skull.

"Next!" I said gleefully. A waypoint showed me the direction to the next battleground an a set off at a run.

"Alice, slow down." I barely heard the AI as he spoke to me. His voice sounded worried though, so I slowed down slightly.

"What?" I whined, sad that my fun had been stopped.

"You need to calm down, you're losing control." He said, his voice was soothing and calm, but it sounded distant.

"Why?" I asked, plainly. I didn't want to stop, I just wanted to keep killing aliens forever.

"You need to be stronger than your impulses." He started talking, but I reached the next battle before he could finish.

"Nah." I stated as I body-checked a large Brute and emptied an SMG magazine into its face. I spun and jumped, twirling into a roundhouse kick that hit another of the massive aliens in the side of the head. It crumpled to the ground an didn't stand back up, so I moved on.

I pulled out the DMR and sighted in on some Grunts. The tiny creatures heads began to explode in my vision as I fired off paced shots. It didn't feel as good as stabbing them, though.

I put the rifle back and climbed halfway up the side of a building. Then I jumped off it an used the jetpack I had been provided with to boost the jump so I landed in the middle of the puny things. I grabbed one and pulled it over to my knife. It struggled as its face was pushed into the blade, but soon stopped moving.

The others started to run so I drew my pistol and shot their methane tanks. I laughed as they flew around and exploded, or got crushed against walls. One of them turned around and pulled out two plasma grenades. It ignited them in its hands and started running at me.

I was about to shoot it when a beam of energy slammed into my shields. I saw the shield bar draining fast and dove out of the way. I lost the sniper, but the grunt exploded too close. My shields dropped and a bunch of debris slammed into my armour.

It hurt, but the joy I was feeling was overpowering. I stood up and fired at the sniper with my pistol. None of the shots hit and it started shooting again. I rolled to the side and heard a three round burst from a battle rifle end the constant beam of energy flowing towards me.

Dutrevai dropped down next to me and shot at a few more enemies, "Holy crap you move fast. I haven't sprinted this much since basic training." She said, sounding very out of breath.

"Gotta go fast, if you want any kills." I told her.

A few shots from carbines force us to drop our heads down. My shields started recharging and I decided to wait it out, rather than take a hit from a sniper. Dutrevai popped out and fired twice in quick succession. I noticed the shots coming our way lessen a little.

I then heard a loud roar and what sounded like ground cracking. I stood up to find a Brute wearing huge armour and wielding a massive gravity hammer charging our cover. Dutrevai dashed to the side and I rolled away. The hammer obliterated the wall we had been behind moments before, sending shards of stone flying everywhere.

I started firing at it with my pistol, but it ran out of ammo. I drew my other SMG and sprayed shots at the massive alien while retreating. Suddenly what looked like fireworks sprayed across its shields and staggered it. I heard the _chu-chunk _of a shotgun being pumped and caught a glimpse of a orange and black striped shell flying through the air.

Another burst of fireworks sprayed across the Chieftan's shields and they broke. The huge beast roared and started running towards Nikolai as he shot again. This time the fiery chunks flying from the barrel of the shotgun impacted the Brute directly. A rather large portion of armour flew off the charging alien, but it didn't stop.

I quickly sprinted towards it and tackled it, right before it reached swinging range of the ODST. We both fell to the ground and started grappling. It was extremely strong and I could hear the enhancers in my suit whine as I tried to subdue its arms so I could finish it.

I heard the three shot sound again and one of its arms went limp. I took the opportunity and stabbed my knife into its neck. It roared and broke free, hurling me a good distance away. I growled and tried to run after the retreating enemy, but a massive amount of machine gun fire cut it down quickly.

I saw another group of Marines moving towards us and I started reloading all the weapons I had emptied.

"Unknown Spartan and ODSTs, stand down." One of the marines shouted at us.

I shook my head and tore my knife out of the dead Brute's neck. I wiped the blood off the blade and sheathed it again. Dutrevai took the marine off to the side and started to speak with him. Another waypoint appeared and I started moving towards it.

"Alice please." His voice was so distant, like he was talking through a wall. I felt like I was suspended in a liquid. I barely felt like I was moving anymore.

I looked out through the glassy windows of my eyes and saw my hands moving. I saw my gun firing, the bullets causing little volcanoes of blood to spray out of the poor creatures that were hit. I started to giggle as I watched the blood fly through the air. The giggle slowly changed into a laugh, which soon turned hysterical.

My assault rifle clicked and fell from my hands. They instantly move to the two SMGs at my side. I had been jumping around constantly, though without hardly noticing. It was like watching an action movie, except through the point of view of the hero.

I noticed an incessant beeping that had started a while ago. I brought up the reason on my HUD and looked. I felt the recoil of the SMGs as I reviewed the readout. It showed my heart rate shooting up extremely high. I muted the alarm and dismissed it.

My hands moved again and I noticed the SMGs were gone. I felt my knife smash through an Elite's shields, armour and skull. I laughed harder as the blade slid out of its twitching body. The purplish blood glistened on the cold steel, making it almost seem to glow. I admired the colour, even as my hands put the sharp blade back in its sheath.

My lungs started burning and my laughter stopped. I sucked in three huge breaths, returning oxygen to my blood. I didn't start laughing again, but I was still grinning. My cheeks were sore from stretching the muscles too much. My breaths were jagged and hurt a little. It felt like I was sucking fire into my body and letting it spread throughout my nerves, making me feel every inch of my being as I moved without thinking.

I didn't want to be in control anymore. It felt nice to let whatever part of my mind consume me and control my body. I wished I could never stop. I just wanted to float in this pool of bliss I was feeling. All I could hear was the distant melody of gunfire and fighting. The occasional burst of alarms as my shields broke, then recharged. My body knew its limits and I automatically went to cover and re-positioned whenever I was in danger.

I sat back and floated, I began to drift. I imagined myself in a small boat, floating on calm waters. I slowly fell asleep, losing conscious in the most satisfying way possible.

_AI_

She just keeps going. I haven't seen a single flicker of brain activity since she got into the fighting. It's like her subconscious has taken over completely. But even so, I can't help but admire her abilities. She's been to six different battles in the area and near-single-handedly wiped out the Covenant presence at each of them. There hasn't been a single enemy that even stood a chance against her when she's engaged in single combat.

Then there's always Dutrevai and Nikolai, who have so far kept her back clear of danger. I have to congratulate them on their efforts, keeping up with Alice is a true feat. Speaking of which Dutrevai is trying to contact me.

"Hey, ball thingy." She called out to me.

I manifested in her Heads Up Display and answered, "Yeah?"

"What the hell is happening with her?" She asked, sounding more than a little concerned.

"Well… There's a lot in that regard. Anything specific you'd like to know?" I replied, knowing there was way too much 'wrong' with Alice to answer correctly.

"She hasn't taken a break yet, it's nearly been an hour and she hasn't stopped moving. She won't answer when I comm her, she doesn't respond to anything." So she was worried about Alice ignoring us too.

"I think her conscious mind has gone to sleep." I said, keeping the words easy to understand so she could focus on shooting enemies. "Her subconscious has taken over and will keep fighting until… Well, I don't know when she'll stop, actually."

"What can we do about it?" She seemed worried that Alice would get hurt, or maybe killed.

"For now, I'm just going to point her towards battle and hope she doesn't target humans." I gave a purposeful sigh, hoping she would understand how exasperated I was.

"How can she be that good while she's asleep?" Dutrevai mused.

"Fighting is in spirit, not mind." Nikolai's voice came over the channel. "It is tradition and practice, not thought." I heard the sounds of his shotgun shooting through the comm link, even though they were supposed to remove the sounds of battle.

"Yeah… But, that's damn impressive, still. I mean, no matter how much you practice, you have to think on your feet during a fight." Dutrevai countered Nikolai's statement.

"I believe she might be developing a second conscious actually. Which could explain how she is able to react to her surroundings so well." I interjected, some readings I had just taken showed just what I had said. A secondary consciousness had manifested within her brain.

"Isn't that a mental illness?" Dutrevai grunted, I looked through her helmet camera and saw she was fighting a Sangheili in close quarters combat while talking.

"Yes, I think it might be a different type of Dissociative Identity Disorder." I said, searching my databanks for cases similar to Alice's.

"Dissa-what disorder?" Dutrevai asked.

"Also known as Multiple Personality Disorder." I clarified. "It may be minor, since she has no real need for a second personality, it will probably just utilize her physical abilities and certain parts of her mind. Which explains why communication is useless."

"That's gonna be a bitch to deal with when we need to stop her." Dutrevai sounded exhausted by the current situation.

"Yeah, but we haven't reached that point yet." I replied. "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it." Truth be told I was beginning to worry too.

How was I going to be able to convince her to stop… That could be a 'bridge' we would be crossing fairly soon, so I have to think of something.


	8. Chapter 8

_I'm not sure how much I like what happens in this chapter... I'm going to keep it as is for now, don't be surprised if it changes later. Also, as a side note, I realize now that there are actually quite a few inconsistencies with Parallel Structure in my sentences. I know my tenses get screwed up sometimes, but after learning about Parallel Structure I'm going to go back and make some edits so things flow more smoothly. I'd love to hear some criticism in a review, so if there's anything you really hate or don't think I did good one, please be Shur to let me know ;D_

Chapter 8

_Alice_

I was flying. I couldn't feel any wind, but I knew. I could tell by the way the metal under my boots shifted slightly. I heard the whine of the Pelican's engines as it transported me. My eyes snapped open and I took in my surroundings. My eyes caught on my armour. It was green. Spartan Green.

"Alice, you all right?" a voice to my left asked.

I glanced over and saw Jerome sitting beside me on the transport ship. I nodded, taking in the sight of the Spartan beside me, I felt like I hadn't seen him in a long time.

"You seem like you're tired, did you not sleep when I told you to?" He said, his voice was stern and commanding. He always knew how to make me follow him, even if I wanted to object.

"You know sleep is important in this type of warfare. You can't run deprived." He continued.

I shook my head and said, "No, I'm fine… Where are we heading?" My voice felt different. It sounded clear and quiet.

"You must be tired, they literally just briefed us." He said, shifting closer and looking into my face, even though my helmet was on.

I leaned back slightly, away from him. As I did so, I noticed flashes of blonde hair in my peripherals. I looked down at my arms again, still green. That familiar shade of green that we all wore. Yet it seemed unfamiliar on my arms.

"Sure." I replied. "I guess I wasn't paying attention…"

"Either way, we're on Arcadia, the Covenant are here and we've been assigned as Red Team to wipe them out." He stated, sounding very soldier-like.

I glanced around the empty Pelican and asked, "Why is it just us?"

"It isn't." He replied quickly. "There's more on the ground, already fighting. We were held back and briefed on our special objective. Don't tell me you don't remember that?"

When he said the word _remember_ I had a sudden flash of thoughts shoot through my mind. It felt almost painful and bright. I looked back on it and heard a computerized voice saying 'Alice… I can get your memories back, it won't hurt.' I clutched the side of my helmet and gasped for air, suddenly light headed.

Jerome put a hand on my shoulder and said, "Come on, we're almost there. Lock and load Spartan." He slammed his helmet on and grabbed an MA5B from the seat next to him.

I shook my head to clear it and stood up. I pulled two SMGs from my own seat and checked their ammo count. The lights turned red and the boarding ramp at the back lowered. I followed Jerome out, and was temporarily blinded by the sunlight. When my vision returned there were only destroyed buildings around me.

The Pelican flew off, but I still felt like the ground under me was moving. I heard distant sounds of battle, louder now that I was outside. I looked around for Jerome, but couldn't see anything moving.

"Alice!" I heard his voice in a distant building, so I ran towards it.

He was sitting on the ground, aiming out the window. I stepped up to him and asked, "Where is everyone? Where are the enemies?"

"Further off, we need to stay low and not get seen." He said. He jumped through the window and beckoned me to follow.

I moved semi-stealthily and followed his armoured back. He led me down a twisting path of back alleyways and side streets. I caught glimpses of battle through buildings occasionally. The perspective was weird, though, like the enemies were huge.

Eventually he stopped outside a Covenant looking base. He pointed to it and said, "That's our objective, we need to infiltrate it and destroy the core."

I looked at the purple alloy metal that formed the strange looking base. It looked almost alive, like it was shifting and moving on its own. I found myself lost staring at it, unable to move. My vision began to blur and I saw more flashes of battle, I realized they were from my perspective, like memories of fighting.

Jerome stepped in front of me and took his helmet off, "Alice. Wake up. We need to do this, now."

I nodded and followed him into the base. I shook my head a few times, trying to clear it and pay attention. We didn't encounter a single enemy, even though we were inside a Covenant forward operating base.

"Just ahead, come on." Jerome was whispering now.

I slowed down and tried to be quiet. We reached a large purple door and Jerome went to the locking mechanism. I didn't see what he did, but the huge door slid open. Inside was a glowing white orb. It was contained within a barrier shield of some type. I had never seen anything like it before.

"That. That's what we need to destroy." Jerome said.

I stepped forward, towards the orb. The room grew darker around me, yet the orb glowed brighter. I felt Jerome put his hand on back, it was reassuring. The darkness suddenly shot towards me, it wrapped around my legs and arms and tried to pull me away from the orb.

Jerome's voice entered my head, "Stay strong, We need to do this. This is our mission."

I didn't remember any mission, I didn't remember the briefing. I don't know what this is. I don't know where I am, but it isn't Arcadia.

Another voice entered my head, "Alice, wait." It was that computer voice again. "Alice, you need to take a break. You need to resist."

I felt Jerome's hand on my back, I could feel it through my armour. It was cold. I looked back, Jerome looked at me. Except his eyes didn't. They were glazed over, I noticed now that his face was grey. _Dead_.

I screamed. I pushed him away and he collapsed on the ground. I looked back at the orb, it was glowing brighter and pulsing with light.

"Alice, what's wrong?" The mechanical voice filled my head, overtook my thoughts.

I felt like I was suffocating, I could hear a loud ringing in my ears. I reached up and grabbed my helmet. I pushed on it, but it wouldn't budge. A deep cold began to settle over me. It started at my back, where Jerome's hand had been.

"Destroy it. Destroy it." I heard a sinister voice whisper to me. "It wants to control you. Manipulate you. It wants to use you.

"Alice, it's okay. We're gonna be fine." Jerome was standing there again, he looked alive. "Just do it and we can be here, together. You never have to forget me."

_Does the name Douglas 042 ring any bells?_ It sounded like the computer again, but distant, from a long time ago.

"No." I said. "No, no, no, no!"

"DO IT!" The sinister voice shouted.

"NO!" I shouted back.

I pushed Jerome away again, I felt tendrils of darkness wrapping tighter around my arms and legs, they wrapped around my whole body, trying to smother me.

"If you won't, then I will just kill you." I pushed my helmet up again, trying to free myself.

It moved, slightly. I continued to push. It started lifting away, the tentacles wrapped around my arms snapped and slithered away. As I pushed the helmet off, I saw before me Jerome. The real Jerome. He was smiling at me, encouraging me. I threw the helmet away and turned away from the Spartan, away from the orb of light. I felt his hand on my back, this time it was warm, the cold from before was banished, I felt strong

"I'm never going to be fine." I spat at the fake Jerome who was facing me now. His face was grey and dead again.

This time the sinister voice came from his mouth, "No, you won't. You aren't human anymore. You aren't even in control, anymore."

I stepped towards it, towards the darkness. Yet the light followed me, it moved forward with me, Jerome's hand never left my back. The dead creature in front of me growled, it spat towards me, but it was backing away as I moved towards it.

"I don't know who you are, or why you are here." I told it, my voice sounded husky and hoarse again. "But this is my head. This is my body. And I won't allow you to take it over, ever again."

It hissed at me and said, "You can't stop me. This is my body just as much as it is yours. I am _you_ and you are me."

I laughed, it sounded like a window shattered. I reached forward and grabbed its face, Jerome's face. I pulled it towards me and saw it shriveling in the light. "No part of me is this pathetically weak."

I pushed it down and forward, slamming its head into the ground. It splattered in darkness and receded. I felt the ground stop moving. Wind tickled my face and moved my hair. The scent of death filled my nostrils.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

_Alice_

I stood up straight, feeling my new armour on me again. I sighed deeply and felt the happiness draining out of my system. I looked around and saw my helmet laying a few feet away. I walked over and retrieved it, scooping the metal case into my arms.

I sat down on a pile of bricks and other debris and looked down into the visor. It was larger than the visor on my old helmet. The whole shape was different, but still resembled the Mark V, vaguely. I brushed some dust off the black reflective surface and slipped the helmet back on.

"Where am I, Ball?" I asked, I let the exhaustion I was feeling creep into my voice a little.

"About half the city away from where you first jumped." He replied, his voice had relief practically spilling from it. "Good to have you back."

"It doesn't feel good to be back." I replied. I pulled my knife out and examined the faint tinge of purple still left on the blade.

"Your two followers were getting worried you weren't going to stop." He continued. "I was coming up with contingencies to stop you, to be honest."

I nodded slowly and put the knife away. I felt around for what guns I had left, I vaguely remember dropping most of them during combat. I had my pistol and the DMR still.

"How long was I out for?" I asked, not sure if I wanted to know the answer.

"That was a good three hours." He replied. "You killed-"

I cut him off by shaking my head and whispered, "Don't tell me. I don't need to know that."

He stayed silent and I heard the familiar sound of jetpacks getting closer. The sound stopped and turned into the crunching of boots on loose ground. I closed my eyes and waited, but nothing happened. A second set of boots walked past where the first ones stopped and I heard a person sit down next to me.

I heard Dutrevai sigh deeply before saying, "You're hard to catch, you know that, right."

I opened my eyes and looked up at her. She had her visor transparent and was grinning at me.

"But that was one hellavuh ride." She was out of breath, but still sounded happy.

I looked past her and saw Nikolai sorting through different coloured shotgun shells and loading a few into his gun. Neither of them looked injured, so I stood slowly. I could feel my muscles move stiffly and they were all sore.

"Our ship just finished its objectives, the battles in space aren't going well, so we've been ordered to bug out." The little blue ball told us.

Dutrevai nodded and her visor turned black again. I pulled out the DMR and scanned the area, looking for threats. The two ODSTs moved around and established a perimeter for a landing zone.

"LZ is clear, we are ready for pick up." Dutrevai called out through the comms.

"Aye, we're on our way te get ye right now." The ship's AI replied.

I heard the whine of engines and saw a faint outline of the Prowler. Its active camouflage coating was good, but I could still see it. It probably worked better in space, where there were less details to copy.

The ship's engines caused huge dust clouds to fly around us. It lowered to the ground and the three of us all stepped inside. The ship immediately closed up and shot off once we were secure. I felt it shake as it left the planet behind. Then again as it entered Slipspace. We were once again trapped for another two weeks.

_AI_

Well, I can't exactly say _what_ that mission was. By all means it was a success. Yet she changed… A lot. Not for the better, either. When we get out of Slipspace I can synchronize with the larger me and see what's actually going on, but for now I'm stuck watching her mope around for a while. A long while.

She just sits around and stares off into the distance. I should be able to read some of her thoughts, but there's nothing there. Ever since she blacked out no one has been able to have a normal conversation with her. Maybe she does have Multiple Personalities Disorder and this is a new personality coming out. Maybe she never actually woke up. Maybe she's trapped within her own mind, being tormented by herself.

Stop. Asking questions with no answers gets nothing done. I better go talk to her.

_Alice_

"Alice." The little ball of light rolled out in front of me. It reminded me of the orb in my mind. "Alice, what's wrong?"

I looked up disdainfully at him. My helmet's visor cast an odd reflection of my face, from its perch across the room, so I looked straight at his manifestation, instead. "Nothing." I replied, simply.

He made a sighing noise and moved closer, "Something is bothering you. You never just sit still."

"I've got a lot on my mind." I replied with a shrug. My thoughts quickly swarmed back in and my focus on the ball faded. Jerome. And who? It said it was me. That I had lost control. Whatever it was, it caused me to lose it during the fighting. I'll have to work hard to keep it down next time.

"Alice!" The ball was right in my face and I jumped back slightly.

"Sorry." I muttered. "I have a lot on my mind."

"You said that already." He replied. "As I was saying, what happened when you came back to the real world, huh? I can help if you tell me."

I sat still for a moment, then took a deep breath and started to recount what I remembered, "When I woke up, well… I wasn't awake, I was in a dream, sort of. Anyways, I woke up inside a Pelican. We were flying over Arcadia, towards a battle or something. It was just me and-" I struggled to say his name out loud. When I did my voice was shaky, "I was with Jerome. He told me we were going to destroy an alien base.

When we landed there was no one around, not even enemies. We snuck around until we came across this strange building. Inside there was a large glowing orb… It kind of reminded me of you, actually. It was pure white and was almost blinding. He told me to destroy it, that we had to destroy it.

Then… Stuff just started happening and there was a fake Jerome, who had led me there, and a real Jerome who helped me fight back against the fake one. In the end I either killed or knocked out the fake one and I was free." I shook my head, trying to recall any specific details, but it had become fuzzy in my head.

He didn't respond for a while, which was only about two seconds, but for an AI that's a long time. "I guess, how should I put this? I likened your condition to Multiple Personality Disorder when you were fighting. Where one personality comes out and takes over for a little while." He paused again. "It could be a possibility. The other personality must have taken on some of Jerome's traits. That's as best I can guess at what's happening without access to my full self."

I rested my chin on my hands again and closed my eyes. My vision was filled with the deep dark red of my eyelids and I tried to force all thoughts from my mind. In my peripherals I saw dark tendrils shoot across my vision. They began to snake closer to the center of my sight.

I snapped open my eyes and the tendrils cleared away. "It's still in there." I blurted. "Whatever it is, it's still in my head, trying to take control." I could feel a slow misery creep deeper into my chest and the urge to kill grow stronger.

"Just don't give in." The ball stated. "Stay strong and resist. To quote an old book: 'Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you."

I put a hand on my chest plate and tried to feel something under the cold steel. Inside I began to feel the darkness trying to claw out. That feeling I had relished when we were close to combat, I had wanted to release it. That is why it exists. Because I allowed it to. Now I have to suffer the consequences.

My vision began to darken, I stood up and my head felt light. "Alice." The ball started, he sounded distant. "Alice something is wrong."

I heard my voice, it sounded dull and quiet, I repeated the same word, over and over, trying to hold back this Devil inside me, "No, no, no, no, no!"

I woke up. Light streamed into my eyes. I could feel my breathing, heavy and difficult. I could feel my limbs as I moved them around sluggishly. My vision cleared and I looked around.

In front of me sat the large orb. "Do you know what this isssssss?" A horrible voice hissed at me.

I quickly stood up, tendrils of darkness wrapped around me and I struggled against them. "No!" I spat at it.

"Oh, but you do." It cackled evilly.

"What are you?!" I shouted at it.

"Your soul." It replied evenly. "As is that."

A dark shadow, pitch black, moved close to the orb. As it neared the bright light, it took the shape of a human. I could see it reach out and touch the orb, I felt a stabbing pain spread out from my chest and head.

I doubled over and coughed, "What was that?"

It chuckled and approached me, a figure cloaked in shadows. So this was my soul? "We are two parts of one. But something separated us. We now conflict. Unfortunately that light won the first battle. Yet I will not be defeated so easily. Rest assured, _Alice_, I will conquer your body and mind, I will take control. Then nothing. NOTHING will save you!"

I screamed and struggled against the darkness binding me. Suddenly the orb pulsed, a wave of light spread through the area and my bindings snapped. I looked towards the dark figure, who had fallen down and was clutching his head.

I heard the ball's words, _Resist the Devil and he shall flee from you._ Then suddenly his voice, "Be strong, Alice. You are strong."

I growled and grabbed the frail looking shadow man. He struggled, but I had a death grip around his neck. I picked him up slowly, until I was suffocating him in the air. Then I slammed him onto the ground like I did the first time.

An extremely bright light flashed out and the shadows were dispelled. I was back, I had won again. Next time, it wouldn't even be a competition. I own this body. I alone control it. Nothing can conquer me.


	10. Chapter 10

_I have no idea what is happening with this story anymore... I started out wanting to write about an upgraded Spartan that runs around and kills tons of Covenant. Now it's more about a girl who went through a horrid version of hell I wouldn't wish upon my most hated enemies, and has to live with herself. I wanted to do external conflict, but it all just became internal. Whatever, some of you seem to enjoy it, so I'll keep writing. As for writing it, I'm finding it harder and harder to keep tenses while I'm going. More of the internal dialogue is becoming present tense, while the descriptions remain past and it's getting weird. _

_Okay, Rant over, enjoy the tenth chapter :D (Woohoo I'm into double digits now!)_

Chapter 10

_AI_

She finally stopped shaking. The trip was nearly over, she collapsed on the first day and has not woken up since. The whole time, though, she had been uncontrollably spasming, she would periodically convulse, like a miniature seizure. The ODST had helped put her on a bed and made a couple of straps to keep her in place, but she hasn't tried to get up yet.

But she stopped. I manifested in front of Dutrevai and said, "She's not shaking anymore, we may need those bindings off her soon."

The marine nodded and I tracked her way through the ship to get to Alice. When she arrived, there was no change to the Spartan laying in the bed. But her breathing had evened out, her heart rate had also settled, and her body temperature had cooled down. They all returned to what was normal for Alice, which would be unhealthy for any other human.

A deep seated feeling began to flood from my thoughts. I hadn't realized how worried I had been feeling the whole trip. It felt like a weight was lifting from my processing and I was running at full capacity again. The larger part of me was going to be pissed when he found out. When I found out, that is. It wouldn't be too long now, we're just two days away. Hopefully Alice wakes up before then.

Her conscious thoughts are returning. This could be it. She's back now. She'll wake up and be back, perfectly fine. Just like when she woke up while fighting. She's dreaming now. I can see her dreams. They are confusing, but I'll watch them anyways, maybe I can get a hint at what happened to her through them.

_Alice_

My eyes felt like they had been sealed shut for years. It took a little too much effort to crack them open and look around. I didn't see anything, but pure white light. I tried to sit up, but I couldn't move. No. Why can't I move? No. No. Not again.

I tried to call out, but all the came out was a low croak. I heard voices dully, like a headache in the back of my mind. Then the straps loosened and I was able to move. My vision was clearing and I saw Dutrevai and Nikolai standing over me, looking extremely worried.

The little blue ball rolled out between them and asked, "Alice, are you alright?"

I looked down at my body and looked up at him. Then I nodded slowly, not entirely sure if I was or not. They all appeared relieved and the two soldiers backed off a little. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and heard the _clunk clunk_ of my boots hitting the deck. Right, I'm on a ship. There's still a long voyage left until we're back to the base.

I looked up at the ball, who moved to my level and I asked, "How long was I out for?"

I felt fairly well rested and really hungry. I stretched my arms a little and stood so I could do more stretches.

Until he replied, "We're almost back at the base, Alice."

I stopped in the middle of pulling on my arm and stared at him. There's no way I was asleep for two weeks. It had felt like a couple hours when I was inside, fighting that shadow thing. _I am your soul. _Its voice rang through my head. It had more control than I thought, if it took that long.

"Alice, there's less than one day left in our flight." The ball continued. "You collapsed on the first day and spent twelve days shaking in bed. After that you came around and spent another day sleeping. What happened?"

I thought of how I was going to tell him. It wasn't an easy thing to explain. "I was back... in my head, I guess. This time, it was bare, nothing looked Covenant, there were no disguises. The orb from before and a bunch of shadows were all I could see. Then the shadow dude started talking about how he was going to kill me and take over my body and stuff. Then the orb flashed and he was hurt, so I finished him off. Then I woke up here."

"So you killed it again?" The ball asked.

"Yeah, but last time that didn't do much." I replied, sourly.

"It's weird that you were gone for so long, though." He muttered, sounding more like it was to himself than anyone.

"So you have a little world inside your head," Dutrevai asked. "Where you fight shadow people next to an orb of light?"

"It's more than that." The little blue orb interjected. "It's a zone of subconscious where parts of her mind battle for dominance, between her good side, dark side, and conscious self. As far as I can gather, that is."

"Yeah, that seems about right, actually." I agreed. "Though my light side is really boring. It just sits there and looks like a ball of light."

"Just a pure white orb?" The blue ball asked.

"Yeah, I've said that." I nearly snapped at him, but made my tone sound a little more friendly.

"Interesting." He said, he sounded distracted.

My stomach growled loudly at me. I glanced around and asked, "Anyone got food?"

Nikolai handed me a tinfoil wrapped bag. I opened it and inside was a steaming meal. It looked different than the bland rations we had been been eating the whole trip. My mouth began to water, but I held off and gave him a questioning look.

"You need food, not nutrients." The stoic ODST answered my gaze.

Without any further invitation I dug into the real food. I shoveled huge mouthfuls of steamed vegetables and meat into my gullet. I hadn't tasted something real in so long it felt like I was eating gourmet food. I had the whole bag gone in what felt like seconds. I set it to the side and grinned, the feeling of warm food hitting my stomach was heavenly.

"I guess you haven't eaten in a long time, huh?" Dutrevai asked, she had a look of slight amazement on her face. This was the second time I had been watched while eating, both times the spectators were shocked. I looked back on the memory of the first time and realized that it had been the same two watching me then as now.

I chuckled and said, "Any more? I'm still hungry."

Nikolai handed me three 'Meal Ready to Eat's and I sliced them open with my combat knife before digging in. The food was bland to the point of being gross, but the food from before helped me get it all down. It took considerably longer to get through the MREs, but I still ate extremely fast.

When I finished I continued my stretches from earlier. I felt my joints pop and shift around, my muscles stretched out nicely. I didn't reach the point where I couldn't go any further, though. I didn't feel like doing a full routine at the moment, but I was still surprised at the mobility the armour gave me.

Apparently so were the others, "I gotta get me some of that." Dutrevai rapped her knuckle on my Mjolnir plates, looking rather impressed.

"It comes with more than just the armour." I stated. "You need a modified body to wear it. And that hurts."

She nodded slowly, then muttered, "Might just be worth it."

I settled down on the bed again and yawned, my body felt like it had rested well, but my mind was sluggish and tired. I leaned back and closed my eyes, hoping sleep wouldn't elude me for long.

I heard Dutrevai and Nikolai leave, trying to be quiet. I pushed my head further back into the pillow and started to drift. Hopefully I could sleep off the next two days, that way I wouldn't be bored.

_Alice_

I felt something hard digging into my back and sat up. Around me I saw calm, deep blue waters. I looked down and noticed I had been laying on the bench of a wooden rowboat. The oars were stowed inside, but I saw nothing else with me.

I looked all around and saw nothing in the waters. Deep below I noticed strange movements in the water. I reached down and put my hand in it. When it entered the clear liquid I saw my glove and armour disappear and my bare skin underneath. I immediately withdrew my limb, the armour reformed around it.

I was confused to say the least, so with more than a little curiosity I plunged my arm into the water. I looked at my skin, which was slowly turning translucent. I noticed the veins under it began to show more, they were blue and red and pulsed slightly. I watched, mesmerized by the sight of the blood moving through my body.

Slowly, though the blood, too, became translucent, a yellow liquid replacing it. I could feel it running through my veins, some sort of foreign invader in my bloodstream. The liquid, orangish yellow now, pulsed with light every time my heart pumped. I tried to trace it up my arm, but the view stopped above the water. So I withdrew my arm, the armour appearing back on it, and stepped out into the water.

I stood on top of the calm ocean for a few seconds, then began to sink into it. There were no bubbles or splashes, I just fell inside. With my breath held, I inspected my body. My pale skin shone as the light from above hit it through the refracting water. It made my skin glow, much like the moon outside of Passage. I had dim memories of it from my childhood.

As my skin became clearer, I noticed pinpricks of red all over my body. They appeared in groupings, or just randomly spread around. Upon closer inspection on some on my arms, they seemed to be areas where needles had once been stabbed into me. I could recall only ever receiving a few of the ones I saw, so Halsey must of really done some work. It seemed like so long ago when that happened, a whole other lifetime, even.

I saw, in my peripherals, blonde hair floating beside my head. I moved my arm up and pushed some over. It was blonde, like my old hair, but underneath I could see hints of crimson. I noticed my veins fill with yellow again and looked down. Right next to my heart, there was an odd growth, it appeared to pulsate with my heartbeat. I reached my hand towards it, my hand passed through my skin as it drew near. I immediately pulled my hand back, what the hell had just happened?

Slowly, tentatively I pushed my hand forward. When it got to the point where I would touch my skin, I pressed on. Again, my hand passed through my chest like neither existed. I moved my hand towards the growth, which was glowing yellow, now. I felt heat as my fingers pressed against the strange object. Carefully, I wrapped my fingers around it and felt it pulse. My heartbeat was right beside it, so I felt both. The weird thing felt extremely hot, like it was boiling. This explains my higher heart rate and body temperature, then.

Feeling a little brave, I tightened my grip. I could feel a squeezing sensation in my chest and I felt short on breath. I loosened, slightly and gave it a tug. It felt so incredibly strange, to have an organ inside of me being pulled on. I could see it move outwards, through my transparent hand. I pulled on it, until it popped free from my chest. I held it up to inspect the strange growth that had just been a part of me.

It looked almost like half of a heart and was dripping with the orange-yellow liquid. Disgusted, I dropped it. It sank, ever so slowly, down into the depths of the ocean. Only then did I remember I had been holding my breath. I quickly thrashed up to the surface and gulped in a massive gust of air. It felt like I had sucked in fire as the oxygen spread through my body. An odd feeling of freedom accompanied the burning sensation. My muscles felt less tense and I relaxed, sinking below the surface again.

My blood turned red again and flowed through my veins with renewed vigor. I could see the white specks of oxygen flowing through the blue and red tubes. I relished in the feeling of being free that I had just experienced. It felt so inexplicably good. I began to drift, slowly falling asleep on the odd tingly sensation.

_AI_

Something really strange just happened. Her heart rate just started flying between low and high, her body temperature, too. I could see into her dream, which was extremely strange. She just… That was fake though. That was her imagination. There's no way she could have just affected her real body.

Yet as I scanned using her suit's basic functions, I noticed that there was, indeed, a growth next to her heart. And now it had stopped beating with her. She had dreamed of it, then crushed it, and it had died. I have no words to describe the weirdness of that.

Something moved in her chest. My scans showed muscles contracting. The growth slowly shifted away from her heart, until it tore free. Her body moved on its own to shift the organ down towards her throat. Then it pressed against the tunnel, I watched in horror as the growth ripped through the thin walls of flesh and entered her esophagus.

She's waking up now, holy shit, what do I do? How do I explain this?!

_Alice_

Pain. It felt like my insides had caught fire. I felt something rising in my throat and rolled off the bed. My legs and hands hit the deck with a loud _clang_. I coughed, feeling the strange object rising up. Blood spewed forth onto the ground. I coughed more and gagged, blood flew all over my hands. I pushed one up against my mouth and sputtered out more blood.

I looked around in panic, trying to find someone for help. Then I felt it, the large object in my throat. It crawled up my breathing tube and began to enter my mouth. I tried to scream, but it blocked my airways. I coughed and gagged again, this time it flew out, into my hand. I lowered my head and puked up blood, gore, and a lot of food.

When I had finally finished clearing my system I looked up at the strange thing that had just forced its way out of me. It was the same as the thing on my heart from my dream. My vision began to darken as I stared at the oddly shaped organ, I felt tired, all I wanted was more rest.

_AI_

What.

What did I just watch… I looked through the unrevealing scans and saw her throat closing and healing rapidly. I used a few cameras to get a good look at the strange organ she was holding. It was flat, looked kind of like half of a heart and oozed some strange amber liquid.

My databanks gave no clue as to what it was, but that wasn't a surprise. Now the larger me is _really_ gonna be pissed. If I were it, I would be too. I kind of wish I could unsee that, fascinating as it was. I just saw a human forcefully eject a dead body part, through the esophagus. Not something you see every day.

I looked and searched and troubleshot until I had exhausted all the limited resources available to me, but still no answer came. Nothing. Nothing like this had ever happened, at least to my knowledge. I will have to look into this after exiting slipspace, for sure.

_AI (Outside of Slipspace)_

_Memories._ I peered at the files I had just uncovered apprehensively. Somehow, before his death, they were able to preserve his… _My_… Memories. What would happen when I viewed them? What would change? Would I become more human, or would they automatically delete like accessing Alice's subconscious?

I began to split myself off again. Whatever happened, I wouldn't dare do it to all of me, not while waiting for Alice's return. I can't even imagine what could go wrong at this point, I've already thought of every scenario where something bad could happen. The worry is actually eating away at me, my processes grew slower, my thinking more slurred.

_Fuck it_. I need something to take my mind off the worry, the emotions. I finished the split and opened the file. Suddenly, I was transported away. I could see, feel, hear, smell, taste. I was alive. I felt a pulsation running through my body, I realized it was a heartbeat. My toes flexed as I kept my balance, I could feel muscle and flesh moving within me. Everything was different, yet somehow similar to how I currently 'lived'.

I looked around, I was standing around, probably waiting for something. Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, a person came around. They were massive, nearly five times larger than me. Their arms swooped down and scooped me up. I could see it was a mother, probably.

_Mom._ I knew it. Recognition dawned on me, I could see her as I used to. I had parents. I had a life. I was alive, once.

_Dad. _A man entered to the left. I felt so shocked I couldn't do anything, but the memories did it all for me.

They started moving faster, there were huge areas that had time gaps in them, I only seemed to recall specific events and times. After a while the vivid dream-like memories turned into flashes of light. Is this what Alice went through? It must have been, or extremely similar, at least.

I looked back onto the life I had just witnessed, it was incredibly long. I had been alive for two years, which seemed to only equate to about fifteen or so human years. The human me had live for nearly eighty four. From his… my, earliest memory to when I became an AI and died, all of it flooded through me, consuming every process of thought that I had allocated to this segment.

More than the images and feeling, though, there was emotion. It was like a never-ending painfulness that seeped into my very being. There was so much sadness and loss, too many people I had loved once. Even the death of my first dog resounded and risked bursting from me.

I felt the other section of me probe and look if it was safe. I sent it a warning message, letting myself know I needed more time to make sure I wasn't going to self destruct, somehow. I was going to need a while to sort through this mess. It was going to be a long time before we could synchronize again. A very, very long time.


	11. Chapter 11

_My chapter backlog is gone now. And I've kind of slowed down a lot with this whole 'writing' thing. Who knows when I'll post the next chapter, but it's not like I wasn't sporadic already, aye? I kind of wish I had an idea as to where this story is heading, though. That would probably help me get it moving at a decent pace, with less of this in-between chapters. Because who likes characterization am I right?_

Chapter 11

_Alice_

"Alice." My eyes snapped open and I shot bolt upright. My armour felt heavier, like the enhancers had stopped working.

Around me were two armoured figures and a ball of blue energy. _Soul._ The orb was my soul. The very core of my being, my life force.

"Alice." The voice was computerized, kind of mechanical sounding, like someone was speaking through a strange filter.

"Quiet, she's probably dazed." A girl's voice said.

My vision began to clear and I inspected the beings around me. _Dutrevai, Nikolai, Soul. _My head swam with awareness and sleep. It felt like I was suspended in a fluid and all my senses were being filtered through it.

I opened my mouth to speak, but couldn't think of anything to say. I had no idea what situation I was currently in. I had jumped in the water, my blood… It was yellow, so I pulled out the strange thing on my heart. Except, that was a dream. Yet, I had done it… That thing, it had been laying on the ground. Out of my body.

"Soul." I said, looking towards his ball of light.

"Soul?" He questioned. "What do you mean?"

That was confusing, "Your name. Don't you remember?"

"No… But I guess it could be." He sounded more confused than me. "Is that what you're gonna call me now?"

So before, whatever happened. Yeah, he didn't have a name, right. But I know that's his name… The feeling of the liquid dulling my senses began to drain, slowly. I shook my head, hoping to clear it faster, but it only made my head hurt worse.

"Soul." Nikolai stated, it wasn't a question, more like he was trying the word out. "Why?"

I thought for a moment. My mind returned to the orb of light and the darkness man. They were both my soul, yet the light had won the first battle. The orb, I just knew was him. I could only see it when looking at him now.

"Because he is a part of my soul." I finally replied.

"Part of your soul?" The ball queried. "What do you mean."

"When I explained the world I was in earlier, I mentioned the orb of white light." I began to explain. "That thing is half of my soul, the other half is the dark man, who wants to take over. That orb, instead of appearing to me as moving or anything, always spoke to me in your voice." Everything I was saying was being clarified in my head as I said it. I was only just realizing all this now.

"So you're saying I'm your soul?" He sounded fairly incredulous.

"No, my soul is represented by you." I replied, trying to convince him was proving harder than I had initially thought.

Suddenly the ship's AI spoke over the intercom, "We'll be exiting Slipspace in five minutes, make sure yer not pokin' yer heads out the gunwales when we do."

I slipped my legs off the bed and felt my armoured boots hit the deck. I tried to stand, but my head was still light and fuzzy. I shook it again, which caused another stabbing bit of pain to shoot through it. My breathing had grown heavy and ragged.

"Are you okay?" Dutrevai asked, she put her hand on my shoulder and looked into my eyes, concern was etched on her face.

I shook my head and forced my way up. My vision blackened and I lost feeling in my limbs for a couple seconds. "I'm never okay." I told her.

She backed off, but the concern was still there. I didn't care, no one had to feel sorry for me. Nothing could overcome me, why would she be worried about me?

Nikolai stepped forward and pushed on my chest plate. I felt my legs give out under me, I was unable to keep them straight. I dropped to a sitting position, the bed creaked under my weight.

"No. You never will be." He said, I could feel the command behind his voice. "So why do pretend you are invincible?"

I lowered my gaze away from him. A feeling of regret sat in my chest, but I couldn't quite place what it was from. He crouched down and looked directly at my eyes. I tried looking away, but he put a hand on my shoulder. It clacked on my armour and I turned my gaze to his light coloured eyes. They were normal, unlike mine, but the irises were a light blue, it seemed like a grey ice was coating them.

"Even God rested, don't push too hard." He said, his breath was hot against my face. I felt something rise in my chest, a lump of air that threatened to burst out as tears. I forced it back down and took a huge gulp of air as he stood back up and walked away. My chest hurt inside, but not a physical pain, like the one from pulling out that growth. This pain was deep and old. It was similar to the feeling of when Soul said he needed me, that he wanted me to live. When he said that he would live for me.

The ship shook violently, I hadn't even heard the AI say we were exiting Slipspace. My boots had dirt all over them. A lot of purple, green, and red, too. Gonna need to clean my armour later. I need to wash away what's left of that fight, so I can move onto the next one. Just need to keep moving forward. Someday things may get better.

_AI_

Her soul? When I had originally made my avatar it was supposed to be white, but that would have been a bit harsh to look at, so I turned it blue. It must be just a strange coincidence that she thinks that. At least now I can finally scan her properly and figure out what exactly is wrong. Along with full access to my databases to research. Man, it's good to be back.

I wonder how my memory partition is doing. The memory it sent was so vague, but contacting it is probably a bad idea right now. Not knowing almost seems worse than whatever consequences that would come of reiterating it. But I resisted, barely.

Alice's condition appears very similar to Multiple Personalities, but differs in quite a few ways. Maybe what she said is actually what happened, where her soul split in two. In which case, rather than creating different people to cope with different situations, when Halsey put her through that hell of an experiment her morality is the thing that broke. Which also defends how I hypothesized her brain shutting down and running on instinct the whole time.

Interesting. A very lucky set of events are what has kept her alive and running, clearly. So with the rift in her morality… That would mean she is currently innately good, or light as she said. But that doesn't make sense. She is most definitely not an angel with a pure heart meant only for kindness. The way she described it was more like she was a third party in her own soul. As though she herself is the other part of it. There is the light, the darkness, and her humanity.

And I'm her light side, huh… Very interesting.

_Alice_

Back at the base. My memories of this place aren't exactly fond. They more borderline towards 'the place in life where I can find hell'. I walked towards Douglas' room in the infirmary, I had no clue what to say to him. Something like, holy shit you better be glad you didn't actually make it through that properly.

I opened the door slowly. He lowered the magazine he was reading and gave me a weak smile as I entered.

"You smell like battle." He said, his voice sounded weak.

"Yeah." I replied. "It wasn't pleasant."

He nodded slowly, like he understood. "So you kill a few for me?"

"Yeah, one of those fancy armoured ones, too." I grinned a little, trying to lighten my own mood a little.

"Oh yeah, one of the unicorns?" He chuckled slightly at the name we had called the Elite's with the large protrusion on their helmet's forehead.

I laughed too and said, "Yep, squashed him when I jumped off the ship."

He looked down to my boots, still caked in dirt and blood and nodded, his smile slowly fading.

I sat down on the bed and sighed, now came the tough part. Silence filled the space between us as I tried to think of what I should tell him.

Finally he burst out and said, "Do you ever get the feeling that something is inside you? Like, not a literal thing, but something wants out, and the desire to kill gets really strong?"

So he felt it too… "Yes." I replied softly. "Don't let it out. If you do nothing else in your time here, do this: Force that feeling down until even when you do kill, it isn't for its benefit."

He sat up slowly and looked me in the eyes. He put his hand on his chest and scrunched up the fabric of his shirt. "It hurts. It hurts so much. I feel like I'm going to go berserk. Every time the nurses walk in I have to suppress the urge to attack them! I need to release it."

"No." I stated, flatly. "Once that monster is released, it comes back to haunt you, the feeling gets worse and worse."

I took a deep breath and decided to tell him, "During my battle, I lost control. I started killing and couldn't stop. At first it was because it felt so damn good. But it quickly turned to me just watching my own body move and attack. I didn't realize at the time, until I lost consciousness. When I woke up I had been through at least ten different battle-zones. I didn't remember any of them.

When that monster inside you sees an opportunity it will claw its way out and crush you. Now I have to live with it inside me. I have to deal with those consequences, believe me when I say: A life feeling that urge is a million times easier than what I went through on my way back."

He looked down at his hands, which had started shaking. "I don't think I can. It's just so strong. It hurts so much. When Halsey fucked us up the first time, she made me feel pleasure from killing. The opposite of that is pain. Pure burning agony everywhere I go, in everything I do."

I wish I had that. The deep pit of despair in my stomach was a void that felt like it was overtaking me. If all I felt was physical pain I could cope. Yet, I hadn't felt that misery since I woke up on the ship. Actually, it was specifically after I had… gotten rid of that growth on my heart. The misery had started to fade, it was slow, but I had noticed a small change over the past day.

"It gets easier, you'll learn to live with it." I said, I wasn't sure if he would or not, but I needed to give him hope. "Try asking the doctors to examine your heart, they may find something there. If they do, try to get them to cut it out."

Just then a nurse knocked and said, "We need you to leave now, sorry."

I stood up and brushed past the small woman, making my way out, hopefully to clean my armour. Something to eat wouldn't hurt either. I began to wander the halls, my thoughts more prevalent than my direction.

_AI_

There are no recorded events of human organ expulsion, ever. That is not a thing that humans do. Her body is seriously messed up if things like that can happen. That damned Halsey screwed her up so much. I wish I had stopped it before hand, but I barely even knew Alice then, I didn't even know the full effects of what Halsey was doing. It's probably in my best health to avoid telling Alice that I helped with the experiments…

That 'organ', however, was actually the implant that the mad doctor put inside all of these Spartans when they arrived here. It's the thing that caused them all to experience rewarding sensations while fighting, and, of course, the opposite effect when sitting around waiting.

With it gone, Alice's heart rate and body temperature have gone down a bit. But only a little, her heart seems to normally have an extremely high Beat Per Minute count now. The extra blood flowing through her causes her to burn more oxygen than normal, making her systems more active, causing an increase in core temperature. It seems to make her senses far more alert at all times, as well as keeping her muscles ready to move.

The extra oxygen also helps a lot with her strength, which is significantly higher than before the changes. Yet her muscles haven't grown all that much larger, they just became denser. Normally a human of that strength would be massive, but her outward growth was stopped, probably by Halsey.

I wonder what else she can do. Already she has impressed me so many times I've just begun to imagine it as normal around her. I have no doubt she'll continue to awe my mind with displays of sheer strength, or speed. Perhaps some of the strange organs I found in a few of the ultrasound scans I did will come to light soon, as well.

_Alice_

Thinking. I've been doing a little too much of that recently. I used to be able to just zone out and focus on my movements and where I was heading, but now, my mind is plagued constantly by thoughts. They swarm through my mind like gnats, eating away at my sanity. Everything moves through at a pace so rapid, I barely keep up with them myself. It's almost as though there's something else having them, something else utilizing the parts of my brain i never did.

_Very perceptive. _A voice suddenly spoke to me, it sounded internal, like my own thoughts. _Greetings, Alice. I am your Soul._

I stopped in the middle of a hallway and focused my attention fully on the second part of my soul. It sounded just like the little blue ball, but more… Organic. Like an actual person's voice, rather than a computer's.

_Do not be alarmed. _It continued. _I wish only to coexist with you, not take you over._

"Yeah right." I spat. "The other half of my soul begs to differ."

_Testy, testy. _It sounded like the ball used to all the time, smug and overconfident. _Him and I are two completely different beings, as are you, Alice._

"And I'm supposed to trust you?" Anger began to well up in me. Nothing uses my body. Not anymore.

_Well, no. But it's not like I'll be leaving anytime soon. Or really at all. So you may as well just accept the fact that I'm here. _Overconfident and smug. I hate it already. _Besides, it's not like you were using this wonderful muscle, anyways._

"How about I go in there and kick your ass like I did the other one?" I snarled at it.

'_Fool! You never did anything of the sort.' _That sinister, cold voice was back.

"Twice." I crossed my arms. It was beginning to get crowded in my head. There was something that felt seriously wrong with having separate entities in my own mind.

It cackled evilly, and also managed to sound quite smug. '_You think you won, there? If it weren't for this idiot, you'd have never woken up!'_

_Silence. _The light side of my soul sighed. _You are pitiful, I used a mere fraction of my strength and you were completely obliterated by her._

'_Shut up! You have nothing to do with this.'_

_Actually, I was here first, talking with her. You are the one intruding._

"Enough!" I roared. The voices quieted down and I lowered my voice. "Both of you are _intruding_ on me. Now get the fuck out of my head before I rip both of you out and kill you!"

A scientist eyed me cautiously as he walked by, I growled at him and started walking back to my quarters. The next battle couldn't come soon enough.

_AI_

I guess that settles it. She has Schizophrenia. Add on Multiple Personalities and I've got my self one messed up warrior. And that's just her mental state, not even all the things screwed up about her body.

Oh well. She's my messed up warrior now. I'm the one watching over her, no one else even gives a shit about her right now, except maybe to slice her open and harvest for parts. Ah, sympathy, that's what this is called. Maybe a little empathy is mixed in there too. Emotions are difficult. I can never find a good description as to what they feel like. It makes it hard to figure out what I'm feeling.

An AI feeling emotions, what a joke. I may be going into an early rampancy… Even if I am, I have to keep watch over Alice. She'd probably find a way to suicide and kill a million Covenant soldiers in the process. Who am I kidding, I couldn't stop her from doing that if I had the entire UNSC at my disposal.

Probably a good thing I didn't join in on her little 'conversation', though. She probably would've found a way to rip me a proverbial 'new one'. I think I'd rather not get shouted at right now. She does that enough anyways.

I only hope she finds a way to control the other people fighting for control inside her before her next battle. Which is in less than two days. So, yeah, nevermind, I just hope her other personality doesn't start attacking humans, then we'd be in some real deep shit. Good thing those two ODST will be there, otherwise who knows what could happen.


	12. Chapter 12

_Ay. Well, I obviously need to write more, if my chapters are getting this spread out. Dammit homework, taking my free time away. Well, I needed a filler chapter to take up some time gaps, which means some more interesting things are going to happen soon! That's not to say this chapter is useless, though. Quite the opposite in fact. _

_I still don't know if I'm managing to convey emotions very well, you see, I don't feel very much of them. sadness and happiness are kind of foreign to me, though I have experienced a lot more happiness recently. I'm not entirely sure if my words are able to move someone to tears, though, so some advice on that would be much appreciated :D_

Chapter 12

I decided to visit the other two Spartans who had survived. I don't know why, but I guess I felt they needed some kind of hope to cling on to, so why be that hope? I walked into the first one's room, it was exactly the same as Douglas's, but instead of him in the bed it was that other female from the gym who had asked me about the procedure before they all got put under it.

She smiled weakly at me as I entered, I noticed a small bit of recognition on her face. I tried to put on a smile, to be strong, but I knew it wasn't convincing. I sat down in the chair next to her bed, the small thing groaned under my weight, but held, surprisingly.

"Do you remember me?" I asked her, not entirely sure if her memories were intact or not.

She nodded slowly, like it was difficult to recall when she had seen me last. After a few seconds of her staring at my face she said, "I thought you said it wasn't that bad."

I nodded slowly, she sounded like she was joking so I played along, "I guess I slept through too much of it to notice."

Her laugh sounded broken and a bit painful. I smiled more and continued, "But then again, I made it through mine, so maybe what they put you through was worse."

I better not tell her the truth, Douglas didn't take that too well when he found out. She just laid back and nodded. She seemed to relax with me just sitting there, so I just sat. We stayed in silence for a little while, just taking the time to relax. I tried to ignore the constant pestering of my soul's thoughts and the urge to get up and move from the other part of my soul.

I nearly jumped out of the bed when she spontaneously began to hum. I didn't recognize the tune, but the tone was soft and sweet. It was probably a lullaby of sorts. She had her eyes closed and would have looked peaceful, if it weren't for the fact that she looked like she was in pain.

I put my hand on her shoulder and her eyes snapped open. Sweat was pouring down her face and she opened her mouth in a silent scream. I grabbed her shoulders and pulled her into a hug, barely thinking, just acting. I held the fragile looking girl close, running my armoured hands through her hair and trying to calm her down.

She was sobbing in my arms and I felt helpless. I just held her there and whispered softly, "It's okay, you're safe." Until she stopped crying.

She leaned back and wiped the tears from her face, I realized now how young she was. She looked barely old enough to be living on her own. I'm the same age as her, though.

She shivered slightly and spoke in a hoarse mumble, "I'm so scared. Don't let me go."

The tears fell down her cheeks again. I looked down into her huge, pleading eyes. They were normal, but I noticed tinges of colour in them that shouldn't be there. I felt so sorry for this poor child, taken away from her parents and put through so many different hells. And yet, I'm exactly the same as her.

"I have to." I said, keeping the wavering from entering my voice. "You need to be strong on your own. I won't be around for much longer."

"Please! I don't want to be alone." She whispered. "You're the only one who doesn't scare me."

Fear, then. Or rather, bravery. She must feel brave in combat, but the opposite applies when she isn't fighting. I could imagine a never-ending constant pointless fear overtaking all my senses. It seemed like a worse version of hell than what I went through.

"You don't have to be scared, there's nothing in this life that can defeat you." I forced my voice to be strong and confident. These words were directed at me almost as much as her. They were the same ones I told myself all the time. "You lived through whatever Halsey threw at you, you've killed enough aliens to make a dent in their armies. You are stronger than anyone else, so there's nothing you even need to fear."

She nodded and her tears stopped flowing out. I pulled my lips back in a smile and told her one last thing, "Tell the doctors to look at your heart, if they find anything, get them to remove it, okay?"

She nodded and I stood up, the nurse was just getting ready to tell me to leave when I walked out the door.

I had intended on visiting both of the Spartans, but my encounter with just that one nearly shattered my resolve. I felt an ache grow in my chest and I wanted to puke. Why? Why did this have to happen? I wish Halsey wasn't such a cold hearted bitch. Maybe then she would realize how much suffering she had caused.

I seem to relate everything she does to us with hell, but there isn't exactly much else that fits. Hell. Maybe that's what this is. Maybe I already lived, maybe I was a terrible person. Why else would I be forced through a horrible life like this…

Which is why I went past the other Spartan's room without looking back. I didn't want to be a shield for other's pain. I had enough t block of my own. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week. But definitely not today. I had just seen enough pain for my whole life. My heart felt like it had just split in half. Painfully hot blood soaked down my chest and all I could do was let it.

I grabbed my helmet, the horrible cage that I had not put on since the first time I regained control, and slid it on. Then I cried. I wandered through the hallways aimlessly. The tears spilled over my eyelids and burned trails down my face.

Crying hurt. It was such a terrible feeling. But I couldn't stop it anymore. I couldn't hold in the scalding tears, or they would explode. I would blow up. I needed to vent, so I did. I cried for hours, the clock seemed to fade in and out of existence, each time it did, another hour or so would shoot by.

Finally the tears wouldn't come out. They dried up and turned to salt on my cheeks. My eyes felt dry and sore. Every breath was ragged and painful.

Soul's voice echoed in my helmet, "Alice… You don't have to put yourself through that, you know…"

I shook my head, "I need to comfort them. I need to give them hope. Without that, they'll just die."

"_You _need someone to comfort you." He replied. "You're in just as much pain as they are."

"I'm not, though. That thing, that came out of me. It's what gave me the urge to kill." My voice hurt, it felt like sandpaper was being dragged through my throat. "I don't feel it anymore. I'm free. They are still trying to cope with it. I need to get it out of them somehow."

"Well, I guess you'll just have to try then." He seemed like he was about to change the subject, I hoped he did. "On a completely unrelated note, you'll be shipping out again tomorrow."

"That was fast." I made my way back to my room, hoping to get some sleep before leaving.

"Yeah, you're on the same ship again," He continued. "They don't usually stop at a base this often, so you'll be out in the open for a lot longer."

I nodded and entered the small room with my bed in it. I pulled off the steel helmet that had hidden my emotions and hung it on the bed frame.

"Are you going to lose it this time?" Soul suddenly blurted. His little ball rolled out in front of me.

I shrugged and thought for a moment. "It shouldn't be a problem now that some of Halsey's tamperings are gone."

"I need a for sure answer, Alice." He demanded. "Can you control it, both of them?"

He knew about the other half now? I guess it's not surprising, he hears what goes on in my mind as well. I looked up at his hologram and put as much confidence into my voice as I could, "This body is mine. No one else can control it."

"Good." He said. "That's a promise."

I nodded and laid down in my bed. Sleep would elude me for a while, I could feel it. Nevertheless I closed my eyes and ignored everything around me.

I'm kind of scared, to be honest. She may have made that promise, but it's not like she has absolute control over everything inside her, she's gonna have to fight hard to overcome this. I don't even know if she _can_ overcome it. Her brain may stay split up for the rest of her life, but I'm going forward on the hope that she will bring it under control.

If she can't control it, maybe I can find a way to purge the other parts of her, so that she's the only one left. That would be really dangerous, though. She could end up losing those parts permanently and being stuck as some kind of zombie, or something similar. Damn, i hate not being able to help with this. It's stressing me out way too much.

That and the 'human' fragment hasn't contacted me at all yet. I hope it didn't self destruct and not warn me. I hate this waiting around, it's killing me.

On the bright side, Alice is off to fight soon. On the negative side of that bright side, I'll be losing contact with her for another three days while she's in slipspace. Fuck. I need to stop thinking about every detail. Wouldn't that be a dream come true, eh?

I hope the human part of me can do that, just zone out and stop for a while. A little rest would be so nice. I wonder what would happen if I deactivated for a while, or shut off all my processes… No that wouldn't even help. Even worse, I'd be left with a void of information and that would really suck.

Well, it's happened, I hate being an AI now.

"All aboard, we're setting sail in five minutes!" The ship's AI called over the comms.

"We've been sitting here for the past five minutes!" Dutrevai shouted at it. "We should just lift off already."

The AI manifested itself nearby and shook its head, "No can do, missy. We've got a schedule and the Captain would like to stick to it."

Dutrevai threw one of her knives at the little blue man, who wavered as the steel passed through the hologram and stuck into the far wall.

"Put too many holes in the hull and we'll capsize." The AI joked, before fizzling out of existence.

Dutrevai stormed over to her knife and tore it out of the wall, leaving a rather large gash where it had pierced the metal.

"You seem to be in a foul mood." Soul said, rolling into my vision.

"Can it, ball." She muttered. Her knife made a slamming noise as it slid into its sheath.

I leaned back and set my eyes on the dark ceiling, trying to take my mind off things. Things being the fact that I never got around to visiting the other Spartan. Come to think of it, I never got that one's name. Oh well, I'll be back here soon enough, not like they're going anywhere soon.

"You've been through this flight enough times to know that relaxing is the best way." I told the angry woman beside me.

"Doesn't matter, I'm still pissed." She growled.

Nikolai walked into the room and sat down, he grabbed onto a support handle and we all braced. The ship began to lift off, with more than a lot of shuddering and shaking. It went quiet for a minute, then I felt us ripping through space and time. Soul flickered slightly as he was disconnected from his larger self.

"Why are you even angry," I asked.

"Don't ask." Nikolai said.

Dutrevai crossed her arms and settled into a seethe. I shook my head and turned my gaze back to the roof. I could see movements in the shadows as reflections from what little light there was were cast around. Not the most pleasant place, but right now, this seemed like home to me.

On this ship, a coffin hurdling through space at unfathomable speeds. But here I had friends. I had allies who I could trust, but more than that, they felt like family. I guess my terms of family must be pretty loose, if all it took was one battle with them beside me. Maybe I'm too trusting.


	13. Chapter 13

_Sigh... Wow. That took a long time. My urge to write has dropped, significantly. I haven't even been going back through any of my work to find things I want to change. The creative part of my mind is probably in recharge mode, so enjoy this chapter while it lasts, I have no clue when the next one will come._

Chapter 13

The klaxons of exiting Slip Space blared and jolted me out of my sleep. It felt like my dreams had been torn from my head, leaving a dull ache behind. I pushed the thoughts of whatever I had been dreaming about behind and prepared for combat.

I made my way to the armoury, Nikolai and Dutrevai hot on my heels. When we arrived I selected the same bunch of weapons I had grabbed last time. Ammo hadn't seemed like a problem then, so I took a few less magazines to lighten the load a tad.

I was excited. Excited because I didn't feel the urge, the neverending, overwhelming need to fight. Instead, I felt my own apprehension, my own want. This was gonna be fun.

"We'll be dropping anchor in five minutes." Hector announced over the intercom.

I realized recently that he only ever told us the five minute warning and never anything before or after. It must have been some kind of request made by the two ODST so they didn't get annoyed. Either way I synced my clock with the time and strapped into one of the waiting seats near the exit.

The ship shuddered and groaned as it tore its way out of Slip and dropped back into the real world. I jostled slightly in the seat, but the webbing straps did their job well. Through my HUD I saw multiple Covenant and UNSC ships locked in combat, pelting each other's shields with missiles and an array of other weaponry.

It was an impressive light show, especially with the blue and purple flares of the plasma exploding. Unfortunately I knew it was a deadly show, one that usually left our own men and women drifting through space, without a ship around them.

Most of the Marines complained how the battles on the ground would be won, but since our ships were inferior they always had to retreat. But space isn't my realm, I'll stick to winning ground battles, even if it barely changes anything. It's too bad, really. We can make soldiers of equal or even greater strength than their best fighters, but their technology is too advanced for us to even destroy effectively.

I have to ignore all the thoughts of losing for now, though. Hope is the only thing keeping humanity afloat right now, and those thoughts destroy hope. I drummed my fingers on the arm of the chair. The _clink clink clink _set me at ease, I felt really nervous. The excitement from before was fading and I got a feeling of dread. Weird, because the only time I had ever felt that was during training and on the first mission.

A klaxon jolted me out of my thoughts and I clipped open the safety harness. The three of us made our way to the large landing door and prepared for jump. I could see the ODST adjusting their jet packs. I had left mine in the armoury, because last time I didn't even use it… I think. It was hard to remember it, everything was blurry and the dreams I was in were more realistic.

A hand hit my shoulder bell and I snapped back to reality. Dutrevai gave me a weird look before tossing herself from the ship. I wasn't far behind as I sprung forward, trying to turn the boiling dread into excitement again.

The ground came faster than I expected. Mainly because we were dropping onto a roof this time. The cement cracked under the force of my landing, but held firm. Good building, probably why it's still standing, unlike many of the other buildings around us. Smoke obscured my sight of a nearby battle, but I could see flashes of plasma and the staccato of gunfire.

I glanced at the ODST beside me, Dutrevai looked antsy, Nikolai seemed calm and almost laid back. I flashed the ready light in my HUD, they both responded with their own and we moved forward. I jumped off the building and slid down the wall.

There was a window ledge halfway down, I grabbed it, to slow myself. The concrete crumbled and gave way, but still did enough to lessen my speed. A plume of dust shot up around my feet as they crunched into the destruction that littered the ground. We walked past a pile of burning corpses, the fire was dying, leaving husks of alien and human bodies.

The gunfire grew louder as we approached the war-zone from behind a building. My motion tracker caught a few enemies within the half-bombed shop. I grinned and shoved my armoured boot into the center of the back door. The steel rectangle flew directly into one, an unfortunate Jackal, who had been standing close by.

I noticed Dutrevai scale the wall behind me as I sprayed into the room with my MA5B. The unsuspecting Covenant didn't even have time to find cover before the Grunts and shield-bearing Jackals lay dead on the floor. I quickly dashed for cover, noting the positions of the outside Elites and other higher value targets.

With a leap I flew out of the storefront, directly onto one of the blue armoured aliens. The Sangheili could barely get its wrist mounted blades ignited before my own knife plunged into its face. I rolled backwards as plasma splashed across my shields. I sent shots out at the counterattacking Covenant to cover my retreat behind a short wall.

I saw a blue light fly over head and quickly vaulted into a vanguard of Jackals as the plasma grenade detonated behind me. My hands moved so fast I could barely see them, as I grabbed the outer edges of the energy shield and wrenched it off the bird creature's arm. The crimson plate of light fizzled out of existence and out of my hands. I thrust my arms forward, around the Jackal's neck, pulling its body up as a miniature shield to block a charged green bolt flying towards me.

The other's in the shield wall regained their will to fight and began firing pink needles and balls of green light at me. I reached down and picked up the shield I had dropped as I dove for cover. As soon as I fitted it onto my wrist the disk of light reappeared. An overpoweringly bright flash of green exploded across the surface, immediately shutting it down.

Sparks began to fly from the device on my arm, so I ripped it off and drew my SMGs. The shield wall was moving forward, while the rest of the aliens fired at me. Behind them the triple stutter of Dutrevai's rifle echoed out. I saw two of the vanguard fall and dove for the gap. The confused Covenant spun to face me, but I had already started shooting. Bullets ripped through their thin bodies, bouncing back off their shields to either hit them again, or into their nearby allies.

I few of my bullets ricocheted off my shields, causing them to glow and spark. The first layer of my shield bar was nearly depleted. A roar announced my next challenger as an Elite charged me from behind. I hesitated for a second, before spinning around behind it and slashing at the back of its neck.

It roared again and spun to stab me with its energy sword. I narrowly slid past the blade and sunk my knife into the joint is its arm. The split-jawed creature howled in pain, only to find bullets filling its open mouth.

I snatched my knife from its falling body and checked my ammo count. Very few left in the SMG I had in my hand, but reloading would have to wait, as another Elite bull-rushed me.

I was about to clash with it, but the roar of a thousand cannons told me otherwise. The chest armour and chest of the Sangheili flew off in an impressive display of gore and guts. I nodded my thanks to Nikolai as he pumped his shotgun with a satisfying _cha-chunk._

I sheathed my knife and reloaded the weapons I had used while running to the next bit of cover. I could still hear Dutrevai firing, she had taken some shots in return, but for the most part she managed to kill whatever aimed at her.

A hail of gunfire on the remaining Covenant forces preceded the few surviving marines still able to fight back. The reinforcements opened up a bunch of new paths I could take to flank the enemies. I flashed a thumbs up at one of them and started running.

I weaved through a labyrinth of rubble and buildings, following my minimap until I came back out onto the main road. The aliens were too focused on the humans pushing them back to notice me grab an Elite and use him like a battering ram through their ranks. Before the Elite could stab me with its wrist-mounted swords I grabbed its split jaw and pulled its head up until a sickening crunch announced the alien's death.

The short amount of time it took to do that put me out in the open for too long. An overcharged plasma shot shattered my shields and pushed me forward. I quickly rolled out of the way as needle shards stuck into my armour. The pink fragments slowly stopped glowing and didn't explode, thankfully.

I slipped behind a wall, right into a group of Grunts who had attempted to use it as cover as well. I immediately planted my boot into the one in front of me. The tiny creature flew backwards into two of its friends. I dropped a frag grenade at their feet as I sprinted past the group of four.

I saw flashes of methane detonating in the explosion as I searched for more cover. More needles flew past me on my way, a few grazed my armour and delayed my shield regeneration again. As I jumped behind a building, a few impacted my leg, scattering themselves into my armour all the way up my calf.

I felt searing pain in my knee and reached down to tear out the deadly shard before it turned my leg into a fine pink mist. My hand closed around the pink crystal and I pulled. I felt it vacate my flesh, before shattering in my hand. My leg shook as the other needles in my armour exploded as well.

The armour on my leg was scarred, but intact. I shook my hand off, which was bleeding quite badly. The armour on the fingers had done its job, but there were too many gaps to account for. I clenched it into a fist and started running again. My shields began to pulse and start up again.

I made my way to the staircase in the building I was taking refuge in. It was crumbling, but intact. I slowed as I neared the top, keeping my pistol ready. A good thing, too, as there were Jackal snipers waiting. Bright flashes forced me to duck back down, for fear of having my face melted off.

The steady beam of energy was accompanied by multiple Carbine shots. I primed another grenade and let it cook for a couple seconds before hurling it over my head. There was an intense light and my helmet automatically muted the outside volume as the high explosive grenade was set off directly above me.

One of the Jackals must have gotten a lucky shot off and hit the ball right as I had thrown it. My shields were nearly depleted again and I could hear enemies below me. I checked my map for ideas and noticed Dutrevai was nearby. She had probably seen the explosion, so I decided to act.

I vaulted the cover I was behind and rushed towards the snipers. The one with the beam sniper staggered as a three round burst exploded its chest. I shot my pistol at the one on my left and the one on my right had a similar fate as the other.

I holstered my pistol and flashed my status light at Dutrevai as thanks, before picking up the alien's sniper. I didn't usually enjoy long range combat, but I needed to keep the ones coming from behind me at bay. I sighted in at the top of the staircase right as an Elite poked its head up.

The beam of pure energy intercepted its head, melting through its shields and armour, leaving a gaping hole behind. The other Covenant must have hesitated, so I grabbed a blue grenade off one of the Jackals and started running towards the staircase. I jumped past it and tossed the sticky blue orb down. I noticed it catch a Grunt on the arm before I slid out of sight.

I waited until the explosion happened to peek out and fire down with the sniper. The beam of light traced a line across a Jackal, splitting it from hip to shoulder. I switched targets to the only other survivor, an Elite with its shields already burst. The energy laser melted its chest, leaving it caved in and smoldering.

I sighed in relief, the familiar hum of my shields coming back bringing safety once more. My mind was clear for once. I felt completely in control, there were no pestering voices, not even Soul had spoken since I began. But there was a weight in my stomach. I could feel the dread from before, it weighed me down. My movements began to grow sluggish, less controlled and accurate.

I shook my head as I walked down the stairs. It was just my imagination, just my imagination. I peeked around a corner and saw outside that the marines were winning the battle. I sighed in relief and set out at a slow run to rejoin the fray. I felt like taking a rest, but I didn't want any of the soldiers to needlessly die while I sat.

I drew my DMR with a wince, the wounds on my hand had re-opened. I shouldered the weapon and started taking shots at the aliens who still tried to fight. My knee throbbed with each bullet, it ached when the Covenant felt my bullets hit them. I glanced down at it, blood had soaked out and spilled onto my armour, but it had stopped after my suit resealed itself.

The throbbing I felt was the pressure between my wound and the foam that my armour automatically poured onto any wound I took. My hand was trying to do the same, but my constant use of it had hindered the process. I could feel the foam begin to lock it in place, preventing movement so it could heal better. I just growled and kept shooting.

After a little while the aliens saw they were losing and decided a tactical withdrawal was the best option. A group of grunts burst forth from the retreating enemies and charged at the marines who had been overeager, trying to pick off the wounded ones. I was sprinting towards one before I knew what was happening.

I dove towards him and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, turning us as the blast from the plasma grenades the grunt had been holding went off. My shields instantly depleted and I felt searing painful heat on my back. I slowly stood, letting my iron grip on the marine go.

It felt like I had taken an open flame to my shoulders, I thought I could feel skin cracking. The marine stared up at me, pure awe on his face. I heard the sounds of other explosions going off around me and shook my head. Those bastards always threw suicide attacks at us when they needed a distraction.

The marine sitting below me hadn't moved yet. I crouched down and stared him in the eye. He shifted back slightly, fear flashing through his features. He was young, probably why he had rushed towards the suicide attack.

"Are you hurt?" I asked gruffly.

He stared for a while longer, before shaking his head slowly. I sighed and said, "Don't go trying to kill yourself again."

I grabbed his Assault Rifle and dropped it on his lap, before turning to find Dutrevai and Nikolai.

As I wandered away I heard a cry of, "Wait!" Behind me.

I turned slowly and saw the marine running after me, he stopped in front of me and gasped for air. I waited, rather impatiently, but still, I waited.

Finally, he stood up straight and said, "I'm Private Norman, thanks so much for saving me."

He gave a sloppy salute, the one only inexperience and lack of training could replicate. I nodded curtly and started walking away again.

Behind me he said, "Uh, wait, could I get your name?"

I stopped, somewhat exasperated, but fairly impressed at this young soldier's courage. Not many people could work up the balls to even speak to me. Again I thought of how young he was, but then again, I'm not much older.

"Call me whatever you want." I said. "I'm sure anyone who knows who I am will know what you're talking about."

He looked confused, but eventually nodded, "Alright. I'll come up with something cool." He grinned at me.

I felt something odd. A little fluttering in my stomach. The dread from earlier lifted away, dissolving into the butterflies that had just spawned there. I turned again and left, unsure what I was feeling. Whatever it was, it wasn't bad, so I enjoyed it while it lasted.


End file.
